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My comments

• Matt, I don't want to split hairs, but what I read from your post (non-native speaker warning apply) is that Roy Fielding has quit Sun, which might make others think that he was a Sun employee. AFAIK, Roy is Chief Scientist at Day, and has no working relationship with Sun: what he did was quitting the Open Solaris project. Other than that, your points do stand indeed. In reply to: "Apache co-founder quits Sun over its alleged culture of control"

  February 21, 2008

  0 replies

• Matt,
  
  let me answer with a quote from my ancestor Horace: "Graecia capta, ferum victorem coepit", that is "once Greece had been captured, it captured its wild conqueror". This flurry of Open Source skills inside the old guys can make them change their minds and adapt, much like the ancient Rome where you could barely tell the distinction between the Forum and Athen's Agora... In reply to: "Nokia acquires Trolltech: Will any open-source companies be left to change the world?"

  January 28, 2008

  0 replies

• Matt, let me put it this way: if you were a farmer, would you consider a deal that promises you a 40X increase in amount of seeds and 8X increase in crop? I think that you will at least do your math and factor in cost of buying, plowing and harvesting a lot more land, to understand whether you're actually getting more value. Much like seeds, leads need caring to grow into customers, and that costs money.
  
  I think that the point is moot anyway. First of all, you can't say much about factors until you know the initial numbers. Did the company move from 1 to 40 lead, or was it from 2000 to 80000? The latter is significant, the former is just noise. Then again, what is a "qualified lead" anyways? Someone who had to fill a form on your website to download stuff? Or someone who e-mailed you to understand if your solution fits their need, find out prices and requesting to be put in touch with someone from sales? Once again, the latter matters, the former is rubbish. We're back to definitions... In reply to: "The open source download canard"

  January 26, 2008

  0 replies

• Call me a broken record, but the more I see those numbers, the more I'm worried, as they seem to suggest that Open Source is utterly unable to turn leads into customers. This is a structural problem and something that deserves attention: Open Source as a marketing machine is all nice and dandy, but you need to make your VP of Sales happy as well. Open Source is getting 80% worse conversion rates than proprietary software: how is that good news kinda beats me. I did some number crunching here, and have to say It's a mixed bag... In reply to: "The open source download canard"

  January 25, 2008

  0 replies

• What about some apple and oranges for a change? I know it's far from being an accurate analysis, but it might be worth noticing how both MySQL and BEA were founded in 1995. Fast forward 13 years, and the latter is getting 8X the value of the former. I know it doesn't mean much, but I can't help noticing... In reply to: "What Sun's acquisition of MySQL means for the software industry"

  January 16, 2008

  0 replies

• Er... communities careless about IPR? You kidding?
  Matt, what's the deal with community open source being careless about IPR? I have to vehemently disagree, as a number of communities (Apache, for one) have strong IP check policies and go at great length to ensure proper treatment of IP rights. Much more than what a lot of companies are doing, actually. In reply to: "Microsoft: Please let us tax you, Red Hat! Please? Pretty please?!?"

  July 5, 2007

  0 replies

• Er... communities careless about IPR? You kidding?
  Matt, what's the deal with community open source being careless about IPR? I have to vehemently disagree, as a number of communities (Apache, for one) have strong IP check policies and go at great length to ensure proper treatment of IP rights. Much more than what a lot of companies are doing, actually. In reply to: "Microsoft: Please let us tax you, Red Hat! Please? Pretty please?!?"

  July 5, 2007

  0 replies