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Re: Catnip and Quanta
by Eric Laffoon on Tuesday 22/Apr/2003, @03:08
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Cats are great! They have a very interesting social structure. They are very smart and contrary to myth can be trained well and are quite loyal. However they abound in personality and individuality. They can tell time without a clock and are great alarm clocks as well as excellent companions. It's funny that I have a business based on those little furry beasts. I love 'em.
When you talk catnip though you have to keep Kitty Hooch seperate. Kitty Hooch is grown in a climate controled environment with as much organic nutrient as is possible to to affect their growth. In fact it's downright freaky! They're only supposed to grow 3 feet tall (1 meter) but I have pictures of me harvesting flower buds from 8 foot (3.7 meter) plants! Kitty Hooch is Catnip++.
Last weekend we sold catnip toys to several visitors from Germany and we have had our toys go as far away as the UK, New Zealand and Isreal. Kitty Hooch, like Quanta, is a lot of fun. It's the other "accidental endeavor" I'm becoming world famous for. I think I must be one lucky guy. ;-) |
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Re: Catnip and Quanta
by Khalid on Tuesday 22/Apr/2003, @06:44
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I don't thing that you are just "lucky" Eric :), I think that you do your job or your hobby and talk about them with a lot of _passion_, and its shows !!, a french philosopher used to say "Nothing great can be achieved without passion"
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Re: Catnip and Quanta
by Eric Laffoon on Tuesday 22/Apr/2003, @10:50
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That's what I like about KDE people... they're smart. When I was a top performing sales manager in my region one of my mentors told me that he believed my success was due to my passion. I have seen people who were total failures at everything find one thing they were passionate about and achieve fame and fortune... just for doing what others did with more passion.
I decided long ago to approach whatever I did with passion. My life is not always easy and I think a lot of people could not handle the uncertainty and sacrifice often required to be self employed. I don't really believe in luck. It's just an expression. Still when I reflect that I spend most of my time doing things I love and my work makes a difference to thousands of people... It is pretty amazingly good considering I fell into both Kitty Hooch and Quanta. That's no lack of good fortune.
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Re: Catnip and Quanta
by cwoelz on Tuesday 22/Apr/2003, @13:33
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Well, Eric, I was thinking about helping you out with Quanta for some time. I am not a web developer, nor a quanta user, but I respect what you are doing for free software. Software prices should decline with time, since there are no marginal production cost, but we are seeing unfair prices for software that have not changed a lot in the last ten years.
Don't get me wrong, I am a liberal (in the european laisser faire, laisser passer sense, not in the american sense), small state, etc... I just think the prices are unfair, ando more, that people are unfairly transfering income to market monopolies. So I think this (helping free software) is the right think to do, it is cool, it help the small companies around the world, avoid income transfer from the poor to the rich, it make sense in economical terms (Inovative commercial software will allways have it value. But non inovative commercial software will have trouble with free software. Free software will allways have limited resources. Most of us are here for the free ride.
I could give money for other projets or developers, some of them more useful to me. But i think you and Quanta deserve it most.
Keep the great work.
Carlos
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Re: Catnip and Quanta
by Eric Laffoon on Tuesday 22/Apr/2003, @15:21
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Hi Carlos,
that's very well put. I think some people might initially get the idea I'm anti-business and then be confused that I'm pro business. I just believe like you in equitable business and against monopolistic wealth transfers. I can tell you what store markups are on products and what reasonable costs are. Unfortunately commercial software seems to never want to get real. If Quanta were sold at $5 a copy (not practical because of the GPL) and we had near our current user base I'd be a millionaire. Go figure!
I would not change things if I could though. I believe in free software. I also believe in people like yourself that will take action to do what they believe is right in their heart without the software being held hostage. There are hundreds of KDE programs alone. Free software is good. The alternative would cost me more than Quanta has. ;-)
Thanks for your kind words.
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Re: Catnip and Quanta
by KDE User on Tuesday 22/Apr/2003, @15:38
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"Just moment ago I finished putting together a 50 page annual report - I decided at the very beginning of the project to give Quanta a shot; I knew I was in for a lot of copy and paste, I've been working with vi for ages and had a feeling that I may be able to save time by taking this on using Quanta."
Its on /. already. I hope you have a steady heart to deal with it. LOL.
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Re: Catnip and Quanta
by Eric Laffoon on Tuesday 22/Apr/2003, @16:40
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SlashDot has to have become the cesspool of the internet. I've never seen a bunch of high minded whiners that need to do laps around the video arcade and so bad in my life. Intelligent and civil conversation seems to be frowned on there replaced by schoolyard banter presented as if there were some superior intelligence involved. I guess it's the initial rush of testosterone that sparks all the acne... I just have little use for it since it is now the cool place for teen aged windoze users to preen and pontificate. Perhaps I should change that to deficate because that seems to be the general content.
I couldn't find your post but I now know I'm an idiot for not writing Quanta in GTK2, for writing it to begin with, for not settling for a console app, for not chaning it's name, for introducing Kommander... I did not check below the threshold for eating, talking, breathing or whether the vote was in on whether I should be allowed to procreate.
Thanks for reminding me why I don't go there. ;-)
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Re: Catnip and Quanta
by KDE User on Tuesday 22/Apr/2003, @18:18
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It's not my post but you can see it here
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=61610&cid=5784901
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Re: Catnip and Quanta
by KDE User on Tuesday 22/Apr/2003, @18:51
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http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=61610&cid=5784924
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=61610&cid=5785546
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=61610&cid=5785554
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=61610&cid=5785939
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=61610&cid=5784860
Some of it is good too.
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Re: Catnip and Quanta
by Eric Laffoon on Tuesday 22/Apr/2003, @19:18
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> Some of it is good too.
Hmmm... it's like they somehow set those to below the threshhold and focus the annoying ones at me. Well I have to say I may have been overly harsh in my review. I still find the noise annoying but apparently not all the adults have left the building. My apologies. There are some very nice comments here, including one from one of our contributors today. I would certainly not want to insult them most of all.
BTW I do vastly enjoy the sanitized digest you provided. I think you have a real marketable service going there. ;-) dotsanislash.org filtered content... I like it.
Thanks
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Re: Catnip and Quanta
by xxl on Tuesday 22/Apr/2003, @16:04
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<quote>
If Quanta were sold at $5 a copy (not practical because of the GPL) and we had near our current user base I'd be a millionaire. Go figure!
</quote>
If Quanta were sold at $5 a copy you wouldn't have got the current user base by far. There's a difference between knowing the path and walking the path. Go figure :)
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Re: Catnip and Quanta
by Eric Laffoon on Tuesday 22/Apr/2003, @16:56
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> If Quanta were sold at $5 a copy you wouldn't have got the current user base by far. There's a difference between knowing the path and walking the path. Go figure :)
True, but forgetting the logistical licensing issues and my personal convictions it does server to illustrate how far afield the commercial model is when competative packages go for $50-$500. Giving away version 1 of a piece of software to get the user base and charging $20 for a lifetime upgrade could yield more revenue than $50 and $35 for each upgrade. The current model is based on small market penetration and hoping to strike it rich with a big hit. It's not just M$ that is promoting free software by broken assumptions.
BTW since Quanta can be updated by XML, any scripting language and Kommander dialogs it essentially would not be able to sell upgrades as it's user extensible. These are other design considerations that commercial software vendors can't afford because it weakens their posture to get more money from their best market, existing customers.
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Re: Catnip and Quanta
by Roberto Alsina on Tuesday 22/Apr/2003, @18:17
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Make it shareware. IT is legal, you know ;-)
Ok, it is not legal to say "use it for 30 days or register", but a copyright notice (and donation request) on startup would not be out of line, and would be covered by the GPL as not removeable, IMVHO.
In fact, I have been meaning to do that, just to see if RMS finally blows a fuse ;-)
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Re: Catnip and Quanta
by Eric Laffoon on Tuesday 22/Apr/2003, @18:42
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> Make it shareware. IT is legal, you know ;-)
Oh common... give me a break. I was just trying to illustrate a point about commercial software.
> Ok, it is not legal to say "use it for 30 days or register", but a copyright notice (and donation request) on startup would not be out of line, and would be covered by the GPL as not removeable, IMVHO.
Hmmm... we have a donation menu item in the help menu. I'm betting it's been sanitized in at least Red hat. Including it in the copyright notice and flashing it at startup had not occured to me. ;-)
> In fact, I have been meaning to do that, just to see if RMS finally blows a fuse ;-)
Oh yes... I can see you doing this. ;-) Please make sure I have a seat for the festivities. ;-)
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