Hi,

I'm Christian Einfeldt, the producer of the DTP film project. Of all of the tools that we are using to prepage this DTP film, perhaps the most important is the SuSE GNU Linux distro, so I wanted to take time to reply to Riaan's thoughtful comments. I'll try to be brief, although I don't excel at being brief. Heh.

The deal between MS and Novell is definitely a digital tipping point. For the first time, Microsoft has made a public statement that it is somehow going to attempt to at least make the appearance of deriving revenue from providing services with the market entrant, GNU Linux (Linux for short). I have two points to make about these events

1) Microsoft is engaged in what Harvard Business Professor Clayton Christensen calls "cramming."
2) Those of us who are passionate about preserving the open Internet must never forget the Unix Wars, because Microsoft formerly succeeded, in part, by dividing the Unix community, and watching as Unix distros and commercial vendors chopped each other up. We must not allow history to repeat in that way.

A quick preface. Our first DTP film, code-named "Buzz" after the first Debian release, is not going to demonize Microsoft. We are aiming for a broad audience, and many newbies think that Bill Gates is a great guy. For a wide variety of reasons, we are not going to go needlessly negative on Microsoft.

Having said that, though, our film will touch on the fierce anti-competitive of market-leading Microsoft. Most of this film, though, will focus on the importance of freedom; how FOSS is improving the lives of its end users; and the ironic similarities between the growth of FOSS and the growth of Microsoft Windows / Office.

But to return to my main points, market leaders such as Microsoft have, in the past, attempted to "cram" a disruptive business model into their sustaining business model. Christensen says that such attempts historically have not succeeded, and that it is theoretically unlikely that such attempts will, in fact, succeed in the future. Microsoft, like Harley Davidson, RCA, Western Union, and a whole host of other market leaders before it, sees the power of the disruptive business model (FOSS) which is challenging it, and Microsoft is trying to "cram" the FOSS business model into its own business model. I think Microsoft will fail, just like RCA failed to ape Sony and "cram" transistors into its (RCA's) desktop vacuum tube radios).

Second, we must not forget the Unix Wars, IMHO. Microsoft is attempting to compete with FOSS by driving a wedge in the FOSS community. So let us continue to hold all FOSS community members accountable to the standards of freedom upon which our community is based. But let's please continue to do so in a way that does not result in a return to the Unix Wars that allowed Microsoft to monopolize the desktop market. Here is an interesting wikipedia article on the Unix wars:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_wars

Jack Messman's basic message has not changed. It is not Novell against Microsoft. The disruptive technology which is driving this digital revolution and bringing historically unprecedented levels of freedom of expression to the world is...us, the Free Open Source Software community. We write the code, we debug the code, we market the code, and we distribute the code. Sharing is our strength. The potential for division is our only weakness.

This is not to say that I think that Riaan was engaging in divisiveness. As I say, we do need to hold all members of our community to high standards of transparency. But IMHO, Novell's actions will be viewed historically as a smart move. At the same time, I understand that some people are honked off at Novell for getting so close to the Borg. It is a scary sight.

And yet, in the same way that only Nixon could go to China, only Novell, whose income and products (Netware, WordPerfect) have been singularly battered by competition with Microsoft, only Novell is in a position to compete with Microsoft by dealing with Microsoft. This closeness between Microsoft and Novell is part of a fierce wrestling match, not a tea dance. Just my 2 cents.

I just found out about this project. Very nice. I want to highlight two things:

1 The sound volume was somewhat inconsistent between clips.

2 Jack Messman: "It is not Novell directly against Microsoft anymore. It is the whole community against Microsoft".

Microsoft and Novell's recent agreement puts a completely different spin on this and probably other clips by Messman.

This POC video will definitely raise the profile of the project. Keep up the great work.