Alex Martelli wrote: > Mike Meyer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Steve Holden <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > Alex Martelli wrote: > > >> Not a bad point at all, although perhaps not entirely congruent to > > >> open > > >> source: hiring key developers has always been a possibility (net of > > >> non-compete agreements, but I'm told California doesn't like those). > > > > California places pretty strict limits on non-compete agreements. I > > Yep, this is roughly what I'd heard, and what I meant above. > > > was at Ingres when their parent company - ASK - got bought by CA. CA > > required people choosing to leave the company to sign an agreement > > that included *their* standard non-compete clause before getting the > > separation cash. Enough people left that found this clause irritating > > that it got take to multiple lawyers. Every last one of them declared > > it unenforceable in CA. > > Tx for the anecdote, which does appear to reinforce the point. I assume > CA's non-compete clause was fine in NY (I'm guessing that's where their > lawyers would be) and they didn't consider the state differences... > > > > > The essential difference, it seems to me, is that buying the company > > > gets you control over the company's proprietary technologies, whereas > > > hiring the developer only gets you access to the development skills of > > > the people who've been involved open source developments. > > > > But it's not at all clear which of these is the more desirable > > outcome. > > Good point. I guess the only real answer is, "it depends". But because > of this SH's point should be rephrased as, "buying the company ONLY gets > you control", etc, to emphasize the paralellism. Even where non-compete > agreements ARE enforced, by buying a company you're still not assured of > getting *access to the development skills* -- even if those developers > are forced to keep working for you, if they feel they're doing it under > duress because you're legally twisting their arm, it seems very unlikely > that you'll get much of anything USEFUL out of them (and I would be > astonished if strict non-compete agreements still applied if you FIRED a > developer, rather than the developer choosing to leave...). > > > CA bought ASK to get control of Ingres, which their Unicenter > > product used as a database. The *entire* server software development > > group left, meaning CA had all the sources and technologies, but none > > of the talent that created them. We called this the $300 million > > source license. > > > > CA pretty clearly got screwed on this deal. They have since > > open-sourced the Ingres product. > > I'm not sure the two sentences in your last paragraphs are really as > causally connected as one might think;-). After all, didn't SAP also > opensource their own DB (I believe they now have a partnership with > MySQL to try to commercialize it), although in different circumstances? > > IOW, it seems to me that, apart from Oracle, nobody's making money on > databases any more (I believe Microsoft is now giving away SQL Server > for free, although maybe not the largest "enterprise" edition and surely > not in open-source form -- of course, MS can afford a *lot* of money > losing ventures, because Windows and Office bankroll the entire company > to a highly "ca-ching" degree;-); so, companies whose money making > depends on applications sitting on top of the DB (true to some extent of > CA, to an even larger one of SAP) may opensource it both to (they hope) > get some free support for it AND to minimally undermine Oracle (who uses > its DB revenues to bankroll multipronged attacks and acquisitions into > the field of enterprise applications). > > Still, I'm not disputing that CA "got screwed"... though it looks like > they did it to themselves -- they didn't stop to consider the need to > WOO developers to actually get them onboard as a part of the overall > deal, just sort of assumed they "came with the package"!-) Bad people > management must be close to the #1 cause of failure of promising mergers > and acquisitions (and I'm not sure the qualifying part of this sentence, > after "failure", is needed;)... > > > Alex Not really in the same vein but " Bad people management must be close to the #1 cause of failure of promising ..." software projects. Mind you, sometimes that just mean, minding one's self.
-- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
