Re: last time, I promise.
- To: misc
- Subject: Re: last time, I promise.
- From: "Wayne Morellini" <waynemm@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 22:07:37 PDT
It is interesting to find out that there is a public domain windows
compatible operating system comming out (yes free) called Freedows:
http://www.freedows.net/
It "will" when ready ;) be compatible with Windows (95, 98 etc) and
linux code. The it will be compatible with Mac-os.
I wish them luck, using an emulator for the 386 instruction set it would
be able to run on alternative processors. So whats the possibility of
extending that 21 core to 32 (prefereably 64) in two weeks (as stated
here a couple of years ago) with some C freindly features like Chucks
previouse 32-Bit processor?
Actually looking at the Freedows site you find mention of NT/DOS that
will run on different processors.
Wish list:
I would like (apart from the handheld i21 machine) to have a P64 system
one day that used a PC system for host I/O.
Wayne.
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>Subject: last time, I promise.
>
>This is a *personal* spam. I sent this to almost every From: address in
>*my* received mail folder.
>
>
>
>Rick Hohensee October 4, 1998
>3234 Powder Mill Rd. humbubba@cqi.com
>Adelphi, Md. 20783 301-595-4063
>
>Introduction
>
>This brief essay is a description of a membership model for an
organization
>collecting, configuring and distributing a GNU/Linux or similar free
software
>and open source software system for profit. My position is that a
business model
>similar to the ASCAP/BMI model for compensating music authors could be
applied
>to authors of open source software, GNU-style free software, and
documentation
>for such software, could provide some material compensation to said
authors, and
>could do so in complete compliance with the various authors' terms of
release of
>copyrights such as the GNU General Public License.
>
>This is also a de-facto solicitation for membership fees for what I
believe is
>the first attempt to form such a company. I call this newborn
distribution
>cLIeNUX. A small frail initial cLIeNUX exists at ftp
blueznet.com/colorg . The
>organization does not yet exist, or consists only of me. I have no
affiliations
>or obligations impinging on the interests of such an organization.
>
>Purpose
>
>The primary purpose of cLIeNUX is to make money for the ownership of
cLIeNUX.
>Pursuant to this object, cLIeNUX is intended to provide value. cLIeNUX
is also
>intended to provide a way to partially restrict how the value of
cLIeNUX is made
>available, so that fees can be realistically charged for full use of or
>participation in cLIeNUX, while still allowing the entire contents of
cLIeNUX to
>be freely redistributable, modifiable and so on in accordance with the
various
>terms of release of copyrights of the various components of cLIeNUX.
>
>Secondary purposes of cLIeNUX are to make a new-user-friendly open
source unix,
>a platform independant distribution, a unix which can be substantially
learned
>without any un-included documentation, a GNU/Linux which is defaulted
for
>client-side use of unix/internet functionality, and many other
stylistic issues,
>such as a /help directory and an html frontend to manpages and other
>documentation, which will serve to differentiate cLIeNUX from existing
>distributions, and thus hopefully serve the above primary purpose.
>
>Reasons
>
>The idea for an ASCAP/BMI-like membership model for GNU GPL free
software and
>other open source materials predates my use of GNU/Linux. It is based
on
>problems I see with the current prevailing market mechanisms for
single-user
>software vis-a-vis the Forth programming language. Forth comes from
little
>systems. It doesn't need to be liberated in the same ways as C and
unix. It
>already is. A typical implementation of the Forth programming language,
or the
>mental model I think most Forth programmers have of what "a Forth" is,
is
>inately open source at the (, virtual or not,) machine level.
>
>This inate openness limits Forth in the marketplace, in ways that now
limit
>software the GPL and less rigorous licenses have liberated. How do you
make
>money off it? GPL is, as I read it, neutral on this problem. And this
is a
>problem, and is a basic freedom. I see the problem with openness as the
symptoms
>of the "cost" of open source software in reference to Forth, in that
vendors
>either avoid Forth altogether, or break it to varying degrees, or stay
in
>limited markets or special-purpose systems, in particular embedded
systems. Free
>Forths tend to be feature-lean and documentation-starved. I believe
there are
>analagous symptoms of the cost of free software in relation to other
systems,
>such as GNU/Linux systems.
>
>With GNU/Linux the quality of documentation is mediocre. This is in
some cases,
>and I'm sorry if this is cynical, to sell books. Not only are books not
free,
>but online context sensitive help is better, although books also serve
different
>purposes in addition to what online help can do.
>
>There appears to be a coming free software support industry. Or rather,
there
>may soon be a lot more Cygnuses. The Netscape guy says things along
these lines,
>and Bob Young says "support" is what Red Hat is about, at least he did
to me at
>Linux Expo. Making money off what goes wrong with your product, or what
is
>unclear about your information system product is, in theory anyway, a
conflict
>of interest. Selling support is perfectly reasonable with one or more
CD's worth
>of software, but it is still conceptually flawed. It is however, the
best means
>yet of getting around the prevailing idea that revenue on software is
directly
>dependant on keeping the sourcecode secret. cLIeNUX is another way to
get
>around this inefficient paradigm.
>
>My idea for a from-scratch Forth system scenario was to compensate
contributors
>on a per name-space entity basis. In Forth a namespace entity is a
Forth "word",
>which has similarites to various things in unix, including a command
and/or a
>linkable library routine. Now GNU/Linux more than eliminates the need
to write
>an OS, but the compensation issues are not so simple. Not nearly so.
But the
>top-down freedom of GPL and the bottom-up freedom of Forth would both
benefit
>from such a mechanism. Or several such mechanisms. If it makes money,
imitators
>will emerge. And eventually, better ideas.
>
>The membership model
>
>The company, currently me, puts out an open-source GNU/whatever/Linux
>distribution. The membership, nobody so far, pays $50-- a year to have
access to
>content discussions, other clubby perquisities, and most important, to
qualify
>for the contributor plowback fund. The distribution itself is
available, at the
>very least, via the usual open source channels. The list of active
members is
>information which is available to the members, which thus means
membership
>revenue is known to the members. A declared percentage of membership
revenues
>are guaranteed to be redistributed to the members on the basis of
percentage of
>each member's total contribution to the cLIeNUX-specific content of
cLIeNUX.
>Since this is an experiment, and viability is the most important thing
at this
>point, I offer 20% of membership revenue for that portion of the fund.
That's
>probably low, but better to start low than high. I think that will be
attractive
>to many parties though, and may quickly become subject to competing
entities
>with different rates. Another portion, 5% of gross membership revenue,
will go
>to GNU/Linux related organizations or other beneficial entities.
Plowback payout
>will be quarterly.
>
>Parties within the "company" are not party to the plowback fund. The
company
>decides the content of the distro. Content proportions are on a
raw-storage
>basis. Pictures are the same percentage per byte as C code. This I
think,
>enforces the idea of the value of documentation. A file is the quantum
of
>compensatable authorship. For example, I am the author of xart, but
xart is
>a re-work of XPaint. I can claim full authorship, as far as cLIeNUX
compensation
>is concerned, of only a few files in the xart package. If I weren't
party to the
>cLIeNUX ownership, and if xart was included in cLIeNUX, and if I was a
>paid member of cLIeNUX, then those files I am the sole author of would
be
>subject to cLIeNUX plowback compensation.
>
>The Linux kernel and libc are recused from the compensation fund. This
is to
>protect the maintainers of these crucial pieces of a GNU/Linux from
>ill-concieved patch submissions. This recusal may be extended to other
system
>components, particularly if requested by the author or accepted
maintainer.
>
>I have released parts of the current cLIeNUX with the stipulation that
said
>parts not be redistributed external to cLIeNUX as a whole. This will
NOT be a
>condition for qualification for plowback compensation.
>
>Other factors
>
>The motive for membership is not so great, or economically direct, for
someone
>who has no intention of contributing to the compensatable body of
cLIeNUX
>contributions. cLIeNUX must remain available free of cost. However, if
authors
>of useful software and documentation join, and if cLIeNUX provides a
mechanism
>for interested parties to support near-direct compensation of free
software
>authors, I believe a viable level of revenue will occur.
>
>This setup seems to me to be for the most part GPL-neutral, and I
believe it
>could help free software in some significant ways. Like a reasonably
clear and
>direct way for almost anyone to make a few bucks off almost any
contribution.
>And I've thought so for some time, but in the similar, but hypothetical
>context of a Forth system.
>
>I can make one other personal assurance. cLIeNUX will not adopt a form
of
>ownership that can be freely bought and sold to any large company. If
any party
>is interested in an equity position in cLIeNUX, shared ownership will
be in a
>closely held form apropriate for an independant consultancy.
>
>cLIeNUX viability is dependant on a bit of cooperation from hackerdom.
I ask
>that the first shot at this be given to the guy who first proposed it.
I feel
>that to do so is in the interests of independant purveyors of
intellectual
>property. In fact, I'm asking you to send me fifty dollars. Please.
I'll put the
>membership list on my webpage as soon as it goes over zero.
>
>I am very grateful to Richard Stallman for taking the time to discuss
these
>ideas with me. I am extremely proud of the fact that he described an
earlier
>description of this compensation model as "...a good idea." More
general thanks
>to all the parties making cLIeNUX possible will be in cLIeNUX itself.
>
>
>I do appreciate your time.
>Rick Hohensee
>http://cqi.com/~humbubba
>
>
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