Sterling Ball on Open Source
2003-08-22 19:37:36.064688+02 by
Dan Lyke
3 comments
Via RC3: An interview with Sterling Ball, CEO of Ernie Ball, a guitar string manufacturer ("the world's leading") that was nailed for piracy:
Q: Can you start by giving us a brief rundown of how you became an
open-source advocate?
A: I became an open-source guy because we're a privately owned company,
a family business that's been around for 30 years, making products and
being a good member of society. We've never been sued, never had any
problems paying our bills. And one day I got a call that there were
armed marshals at my door talking about software license compliance...
I thought I was OK; I buy computers with licensed software. But my
lawyer told me it could be pretty bad.
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comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):
#Comment Re: Sterling Ball on Open Source made: 2003-08-24 03:23:32.591321+02 by:
td
What's cool about this is that Ball isn't a zealot and has no axe to grind -- he just wants people to know that he examined a business case, the answer came up Linux and he's happy with the result. The alternatives to Redhat that he looked at were Macintoshes and Sunrays, not Suse and Debian. And after excoriating Microsoft for treating their customers like enemies, he still has a few words to say about them in mitigation. Sounds like a guy I'd be happy to work for.
#Comment Re: Sterling Ball on Open Source made: 2003-08-25 22:20:35.17023+02 by:
baylink
*Damn*, that was a fine piece; much better than I'm accustomed to seeing from CNet, actually.
Thanks for the link.
#Comment Re: Sterling Ball on Open Source made: 2003-09-22 12:42:05.322642+02 by:
meuon
And as well.. Wow. Nice article.
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