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OP uses RedHat as some kind of shining example. I did an Oracle server installation for RedHat as a consultant a few years ago. They took 3 months to pay me - l

OP uses RedHat as some kind of shining example. I did an Oracle server installation for RedHat as a consultant a few years ago. They took 3 months to pay me - literally paid me on the 90th day. The wikipedia article the OP links to reckons the Hacker Ethic is "access, freedom of information, and improvement to quality of life." Interesting that "quality of life" is in there. Building a profitable company is just about the finest thing you can do to uplift a community's quality of life when you create sustainable jobs and those employees fuel other sustainable businesses in the community. I run a profitable company and it often crosses my mind how the dollar that I'm spending at the mom and pop bakery has travelled around the world via happy customers and employees into my local community. There's something else: I read about another startup dying today. They just ran out of cash. I really really hate to see great software and great ideas just die because the creators couldn't figure out how to sustain them. Well guess what, you sustain those ideas by turning them into a profitable business. Profitable companies are a great way to keep your idea alive and available for customers. I make GPL'd software and I make money from it. 90% of my customers use my software for free. Running a for profit company lets me continue to create open source software and to create more of it. It also lets my customers use my open source software for free.

goldfeld 14y ago
Regarding quality of life, this may be my personal standard but I consider it highly relevant. I would think a company like RedHat would undergo a lot of pressure from big clients, and that does not amount to quality of life for me, especially in upper management roles. Though obviously having the huge market of enterprise servers, which serves huge businesses, is why they have become a billion dollar company, I wouldn't want to become such a profitable company on those terms. The way their business model work, the companies that would be great to have as clients (say, small startups) don't need RedHat since they are in fact too good to work with--they can do it themselves. What's left (the billion dollar market) are the huge corporations who need stability and urgency above all. These must be a real pain to cater to. I say from the perspective of working for a company that serves Walmart with software.
mindcrime 14y ago
OP uses RedHat as some kind of shining example. I don't know that I'd call them a "shining" example, and I definitely would not say RH are perfect. They are, however, the best example I could think off at first blush (and second blush, as far as that goes) of a successful for-profit that seems to embody the hacker ethic. There's something else: I read about another startup dying today. They just ran out of cash. I really really hate to see great software and great ideas just die because the creators couldn't figure out how to sustain them. Well guess what, you sustain those ideas by turning them into a profitable business. Profitable companies are a great way to keep your idea alive and available for customers. That's a great way of looking at it, and pretty close to my own view. That's why I want Fogbeam Labs to one day be a large, profitable, influential business... not just to make a lot of money, but so we'll have the resources to do the things we want to do, and so we can do our part to support hackers and open access to knowledge and technology.
- mmaunder 14y ago
  Awesome followup comment - I love your positive outlook! Best of luck to you and your team!!!!!

goldfeld 14y ago

Regarding quality of life, this may be my personal standard but I consider it highly relevant. I would think a company like RedHat would undergo a lot of pressure from big clients, and that does not amount to quality of life for me, especially in upper management roles. Though obviously having the huge market of enterprise servers, which serves huge businesses, is why they have become a billion dollar company, I wouldn't want to become such a profitable company on those terms. The way their business model work, the companies that would be great to have as clients (say, small startups) don't need RedHat since they are in fact too good to work with--they can do it themselves. What's left (the billion dollar market) are the huge corporations who need stability and urgency above all. These must be a real pain to cater to. I say from the perspective of working for a company that serves Walmart with software.

mindcrime 14y ago

OP uses RedHat as some kind of shining example. I don't know that I'd call them a "shining" example, and I definitely would not say RH are perfect. They are, however, the best example I could think off at first blush (and second blush, as far as that goes) of a successful for-profit that seems to embody the hacker ethic. There's something else: I read about another startup dying today. They just ran out of cash. I really really hate to see great software and great ideas just die because the creators couldn't figure out how to sustain them. Well guess what, you sustain those ideas by turning them into a profitable business. Profitable companies are a great way to keep your idea alive and available for customers. That's a great way of looking at it, and pretty close to my own view. That's why I want Fogbeam Labs to one day be a large, profitable, influential business... not just to make a lot of money, but so we'll have the resources to do the things we want to do, and so we can do our part to support hackers and open access to knowledge and technology.

mmaunder 14y ago
Awesome followup comment - I love your positive outlook! Best of luck to you and your team!!!!!