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From: Micah Anderson (micah_at_riseup.net)
Date: Sun 20 Feb 2005 - 18:31:35 GMT


Herbert,

This is a great honor, congratulations!

Ultimately the decision is up to you, however as someone who has found
your presence in the vserver project to be incredibly valuable, I fear
that we will loose such an important piece of this project if you were
to take this position.

Many free software developers are hired by corporations because the
corporations have found that their software is valuable to them,
their paying someone enables them to contribute to the community, as
well as ensure that the development of the software is able to be
sustained in such a way that does not leave them in a bind. It also
gives them the ability to say that they contribute to the Free
Software movement, if they find it advantageous to make such a claim.

If this company is wanting to hire you so that you can continue to
work on the vserver project (and get paid), then this is a great
opportunity for you and weighing the pros and cons of taking this
position are very easy.

If the company is wanting to hire a good kernel developer to work on
their product, then I would be suspicious. Why? Well, they obviously
have identified you as a good kernel developer and would find you a
valuable addition to their team. However, they would be asking you to
focus your work, time and energy on their product, rather than the
vserver product. This may be fine, because you could still work on
vserver in your spare time, but working for a demanding company takes
its toll and your spare time is often spent recovering from work,
rather than doing more coding. You have done incredible work in the
vserver project, this work has been done with care and passion, time
and energy. If this company wants to take you away from the project
that you have devoted so much of yourself to, then there must be a
very good reason for you to do that, otherwise they are tearing you
away from something you enjoy to work on their commercial product.
This would show to me that they do not care about the vserver project,
but only their product, and this is not a very nice way to treat
someone.

It is my opinion that if they want to take you away from the project
that you have devoted yourself to in a very passionate way, then they
either should be supporting the vserver project in doing so, or it
does not matter because you need the money.

I suppose some of this suspicion comes from the fact that this company
develops a product that is very similar to vservers, but it is
commercial and proprietary. I question their motivation behind wanting
to hire you, the driving force behind the free software "competitor"
to their product. It would be a shrewd business move for them to hire
you away from the vserver project because they think that it would
languish and fall apart without you behind it. However, I do not know
the details of what your arrangement with them would be, or what they
have said to you about the vserver project, or their plans for their
own product. Perhaps they want to pay you to work on vservers and they
will move their product to use vservers as a base, I do not know.
These are important questions I think to ask.

I do not say all of this to dissuade you from taking this job, if you
need to take it, you should, the decision is up to you. I for one
would miss greatly Bertl if he was not around because he got vacuumed
up by a company.

micah

Herbert Poetzl schrieb am Sunday, den 20. February 2005:

>
> Hi Community!
>
> yesterday evening I had the pleasure to meet with
> Serguei Beloussov. we had excellent Dinner at the
> 'Schnitzelwirt' where we talked about - who would
> have guessed - different virtualization techniques
> and various commercial and non commercial products
> in this area ...
>
> he clearly pointed out that his company has some
> interest, that virtualization techniques - like the
> one linux-vserver uses - 'gain momentum' in the face
> of system emulators like VMware(tm) and partitioning
> approaches like Xen. he also told me that they are
> watching this project very closely and that, while
> it is small compared to their products, it's quite
> interesting ...
>
> after that we had some fun with Billards (Carambol)
> and right afterwards I was basically offered a job
> where I would be able to do some kernel development
> and get payed for doing so ...
>
> let me know what you think!
>
> TIA,
> Herbert
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Vserver mailing list
> Vserver_at_list.linux-vserver.org
> http://list.linux-vserver.org/mailman/listinfo/vserver
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