I do like my
daytime job, I get paid for it. But how could I afford
leaving it for a week, working for free, to make something happen?
I don't know. Perhaps _you_ can't. But people regularly do build
things for no direct pay as a side-line, either while working for pay
or while between for-pay jobs. I, for example, worked for the second
half of '02 at a job that paid well enough I lived on the resulting
money for all of '03, which time I spent, in large part, creating
software to give away because I felt like it.
Mouse, I really envy you. I've I/we would be in this position, we'd enjoy this
very much. If we could afford doing this because this would be funded somehow,
we'd love to give it away for free, with GPL and all kinds of stuff.
As prince charming did not come along yet, we still fund the preservation work we
do, e.g. buying games to preserve them, with our own private money and what
comes in via sales.
Indeed. Was it lack of politesse, though, or was it criticism? There
is a very important difference. (I haven't seen any of the text in
question, so I don't know whether it was a questino of politeness. But
my experience has also been that honest technical criticism (and
pointing out a choice to use inappropriate line drivers/receivers is
that, even if it is also rude) usually is not impolite. The rabid
flamers generally don't have valid technical points.
It's all about how you address things. You can send things in an email,
or you can suggest something somewhere in public that will give people
that don't have the skills the impression something is completely wrong.
Why would any large, big, mighty institution be
hindered by us to
look at a competitive product? Why would they let us hinder them?
Perhaps they wouldn't. But if you consider it a conflict, and I have
seen companies take very similar stances often enough, then they would
have to choose between the two of you. (As a simple example of such a
conflict, it is extremely hard to find a restaurant, at least around
here, that serves products of both PepsiCo and Coca-Cola - the only
explanation I have heard suggested is that, in order for either to be
willing to sell to a restaurant, it has to agree to not deal with the
other.)
Yes that's because both of them will require you to sign a contract that
will not allow competing beverages to be sold. You also depend on them
because the finance some of your interior.
We don't have NDAs, and I don't see why we'd need those. We don't sell
by telling stories about someone else, or by hindering someone to look
at the competition. We sell because we care, and because we deliver.