Subject: Re: Questions about Symbolics lisp machines
From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net>
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2002 13:13:48 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <3226396442957787@naggum.net>

* Jon Allen Boone <ipmonger@delamancha.org>
| Although I address this in detail below, I must admit that as soon as I
| saw this question, I went to Google to make sure that this was one of the
| things that I was "less confident about."  Because, of course, once you
| brought the spotlight to bear on it, I wasn't comfortable with the idea
| that I had claimed I was confident of it...

  Thanks for the great effort to explain it.  I understand where you are
  coming from and how you think they conflict over time, but it seems to me
  that this situation may also be explained as a company or organization
  initially being the creator of the community, then naturally the leader
  or anchorpoint for some time, but eventually in your view, the community
  acquires a life of its own, at which point the company loses control and
  may be abanadoned as the community focus moves in a different direction
  than the company that created and led it.  Any such change in direction
  would be more costly than if you did not have repeat business from the
  same customers.  However, all this community thing seems to be about
  getting repeat business from your loyal customers.  If you maintain a
  fairly loose coupling with that community and do not let it grow too
  strong, I think this could go on for a really long time.

  Howver, if the community has already done something quite significant on
  its own to rally around, like, say, a specification or something, a
  company that tries to "hijack" said community would probably be really
  hurt.  But that is a fairly special case, I think.

  I found this illuminating and appreciate that you brought it up, as I
  have sort of regarded "community building" as fairly free of dangers.

///
-- 
  In a fight against something, the fight has value, victory has none.
  In a fight for something, the fight is a loss, victory merely relief.