[luau] Taipei Linux Expo 2003

[Hawaii Linux Institute]

On the "co-op" thought, of course, this is not something everyone feels 
comfortable to talk about in public.  Please contact me in private and 
we will see what may (or more likely, may not) happen.

I want to briefly mention a small experience of mine.  A few years ago, 
during the peak of the Linux bubble, I put a small seed money in a 
start-up company.  The business objective was to develop an easy to use 
(Debian-based) Linux distro.  It was an excellent product.  But we have 
to realize this cruel reality that, how can anyone survive trying to 
sell something that is free and which you won't hold any intellectual 
property?

With zero revenue, the two entrepreneuers quickly turned their talents 
to something else.  With their Linux kernel hacking experience, they 
developed a thin Linux client to work with Win2K server.  Having been in 
the computer business for quite sometime, I told them this idea will not 
go anywhere. (Microsoft's licensing scheme was based on the number of 
clients that may be connected to your server; no one could legally 
afford that kind of licensing fees.)  Of course, they won't listen to my 
advice.  But what saved their butt was that Microsoft demanded $100K for 
us to look at their NDA b/4 we could proceed to get Microsoft to certify 
our Linux clients as Win2K compatible.  This was some kind of money we 
simply didn't have.

After a few more bumps, finally, they were able to design a database 
package by combining PHP with PostgreSQL.  The reason they chose PSQL 
was that it is based on the BSD license.  They have now finally found a 
niche.  As I mentioned previously, some of their packages are selling 
for 6-figure numbers.  Now Linux desktops are becoming more mature and 
feature-rich, they are getting back to the Linux thin client business.

While the company is no longer in the Linux distro business, I recently 
came across a very interesting product, a very compact Linux system, 
that they designed for a motherboard maker.  I have mentioned this to 
Warren.  Because of trade secret as well fiduciary duty concerns, I 
never directly ask them what they are doing.  But I would be very 
interested in taking a look at that product when I can get a hand on it 
(from the public domain, that is).


Wayne