From rick Fri Jan 31 00:35:25 2003
Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2003 00:35:25 -0800
To: luv@luv.asn.au
Subject: Re: Corporate Pressure
[Andrew wanted help in pressuring MYOB to create and offer a Linux port.]
Quoting Andrew Greig (AndrewLGreig@netscape.net):
> This is very disappointing! I opened this thread to get some support
> in emailing these companies in an effort to remove a hurdle to the
> uptake of Linux by small business. Not only does it appear that
> depite lots of opinion put forward, no one has put their hand up and
> said."Yes I'll write too!". [...] I believe that this thread is not a
> trivial issue.
I sympathise.
Please understand that, for the past decade or so, the Linux community
has tended to shed the habit -- well entrenched among proprietary OS
users -- of petitioning software houses for platform support. If
existing application vendors don't want to do Linux ports, then someone
may write something better. Maybe even something lawfully maintainable
by third parties (i.e., open source), so it doesn't end up being just a
temporary visitor to Linux[1], but rather becomes something permanently
available.
The vendor you're talking about don't sound like a likely prospect,
since very likely their code is highly non-portable -- and software
houses really hate having to maintain multiple codebases of the same
app.
[1] For example: http://linuxmafia.com/wpfaq/
--
Best Regards, Rick Moen, rick@linuxmafia.com
Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2003 21:15:09 +1100
From: Andrew Greig
To: Rick Moen
CC: luv@luv.asn.au
Subject: Re: Corporate Pressure
Thanks Rick,
Probably 80% of small business in Australia runs on either Quickbooks or
MYOB. For administration of a company you basically need a good office
suite and an easy to use accounting package. Since the advent of our
Goods and services tax (VAT in Canada) software has been vital for this.
Now an extra burden has been placed on the shoulders of small business:
the escalating cost of hardware and software upgrades has made it harder
for small business. This is an opportune time to encourage businesses
to make the leap to Linux, except that they would jump more readily if
their financial history could be carried forward in a Linux version of
these two brands.
Personally I could care less for either of them, but I did notice when
looking at GnuCash the other day that it will accept files in the QIF
format (Quicken Interchange File?), which could make it easier for those
using Quickbooks. If we could find someone with the time and
inclination to do a Samba like treatment of MYOB for Mac OS X, then we
would have the raw materials for a full page ad in a major daily, or
maybe a full page article with a small ad, hehehe.
Personally I like the idea of SQL Ledger which runs in MySQL or
PostgreSQL under Apache. Access it by browser, highly configurable,
inventory, AP, AR all the good stuff. But all the customer histories
and data would have to be re-entered, hard to sell. Great for start
ups, though.
Anyway, thanks for your sympathy.
Andrew Greig
From rick Fri Jan 31 17:12:48 2003
Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2003 17:12:48 -0800
To: luv@luv.asn.au
Subject: Re: Corporate Pressure
User-Agent: Mutt/1.4i
Quoting Donovan Craig (donovan@snapfrozen.com):
> I agree that this is not a trivial issue. However, I don't agree with
> hassling MYOB as (I have already done so on a couple of occasions) they
> are so obviously not interested in seeing the light for their own good.
>
> I personally believe it's far better to just start using alternatives.
> This is something that they will listen to as it will begin eating into
> their bottom line.
Indeed. Look at it from their point of view.
A software company with a commanding presence in an established market
(MYOB, Quicken) that is making easy money in it will feel little
incentive to suddenly start trying to move into a radically different
one, especially when they cannot leverage their existing, highly
non-portable codebase, and would have to code largely from scratch, to
suit the new environment. They would know that competitors will have a
difficult time breaking into _their_ niche, whereas expanding into other
OSes would be a speculative effort, even if porting were feasible (which
in this case, clearly it is not).
Other companies, that don't have a non-portable codebase in a
well-established niche, are much, much, much more likely to be
interested in Linux.
Those are some of the reasons why campaigns to get MYOB, Quicken,
TurboTax (popular in the USA; not sure about Oz), MS-Office, AutoCAD,
and similar sorts of things ported to Linux are -- in my view -- a waste
of time and energy. Either they'll come to Linux eventually out of
fear of being left in the ashheap of history (i.e., perceived
self-interest) or not. In the latter case, they may be replaced by
others who grab the niche that they could have had.
In any event, the history of Linux is that of not asking others to port
code (especially proprietary code), but rather find or creating other
ways to solve the problem on our terms -- preferably ones that cannot be
withdrawn based on corporate fortunes (i.e., that are open source).
This is why I will personally have nothing to do with petitions to
software houses for Linux ports. (Others' views will inevitably differ.)
Besides, even if you grant that such campaigns are desirable, the people
behind them almost never actually deliver them to those empowered to
make decisions about platform support. If you either (1) write/call the
company's technical support, or (2) call the sales number, you'll simply
receive a polite canned response from people who've been supplied it for
that purpose. If you think this is an effective way to reach
decision-makers, you're simply mistaken. They won't even hear you at
all.
You may feel this is not a rational way for companies to behave.
Whether that's true is irrelevant: It's the way companies _do_ behave.
This is one reason why sometimes companies deal with shifts in marketing
opportunties in a Darwinian fashion: The ones dumb enough to ignore
fundamental changes and opening/closing opportunites perish, and ones
better prepared to deal with the market survive and take their place.
> This is why this thread was taken over. People are looking for
> alternatives.
>
> Support the companies who are doing the right thing. Leave the
> companies who aren't. It's almost a form of ethical investment :-)
Quite. Welcome to the Friends of Papa Darwin Club. ;->
--
Cheers, My pid is Inigo Montoya. You kill -9
Rick Moen my parent process. Prepare to vi.
rick@linuxmafia.com