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[Norbert Bollow]

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Tim Young <Tim.Young at LightSys.org> wrote:

> The other thing that I will warn you about is that my entire outlook
> on life is immersed in missions.

I'm very happy to hear this; I care very deeply about the goals of
missions work.  I'm just working towards these goals with a strategy
which is different from the strategies which are today already in
widespread use by missions-minded Christians.

> So all that said, I would be happy to walk a bit down the road with you.

This is wonderful... thank you so much!!!

> The folks who say that you MUST be a 501(c)3 usually assume that
> being legally (through federal law) bound to not falling prey to
> greed will keep you from being greedy.  ;)

The big downside of incorporating a business as a 501(c)3 is that
you can't sell a non-profit.   Building up a successful business is
creating something that has significant economic value.  It is
possible to sell a business at an economically fair price without
being greedy, even if a lot of money is involved.  Of course there
will be some temptations when one has a significant amount of money
at one's disposal.  But we're called to overcome temptations, not
to run away from them.

I don't think that it's healthy to build up a business with the goal
of eventually selling it, but we all know that our knowledge about
the future is very limited.  Even for a business which is firmly built
upon Christian principles, it is conceivable that at some stage many
of the key people who work in the business might decide to quit and
do something else, so that the business loses its ability to meet its
customers' needs.  In such a situation I think selling the business to
a secular company capable of meeting the customers' needs may well be
preferable to any of the alternatives.

> But the way I usually work is to avoid learning about details until
> I need to.  Then I focus on the ones I need to learn.

That's my approach too.

> It is a strange mentality

Count me in among the people with a "strange mentality" then :-)

> Yes, you caught me here.  That was certainly a ministry concept I was
> mentioning, and I knew it.  I just know that a lot of people do not
> distinguish between a business and a ministry, and I wanted to see
> where you stood.  :)
> 
> I agree with you in your distinction.  I would probably add that not
> all extra resources must be used on "doing good works".

I agree wholeheartedly... legalism is very unhealthy for one's
spiritual life.  While I believe that it's a requirement for becoming 
a Christian to forsake ownership of one's material possessions so that
they belong to God in some spiritual sense, I also believe that God has
never said that none of it can be used for purposes of fun and/or
recreation.  Quite on the contrary, in Luke 15:31 we read that God's
attitude concering reasonable activities of fun and recreation is
"everything I have is yours".

> Storing up some to go on vacation should not cause massive guilt
> complexes.

Absolutely!  The point where "fun" and "recreation" activities
start being sinful is if/when they're harmful to one's own or
others' spiritual well-being, or when the cost in terms of time
or material resources is disproportionate in relation to the
value of the activity for fun and recreation.  I don't know exactly
how much is too much, and in fact that's a question that I'm not
really interested in -- I'm much more interested in becoming more
full of the Holy Spirit, that way I'll be so far away from the
line which separates righteous from sinful fun that I won't need to
worry about exactly where that line is. 

> So the big thing I could use from you would be a digital photo of
> the family.

I don't have such a thing right now, but I'll look into borrowing
a digital camera so that we can create such a photograph.

> But if it turns out that we keep in contact a bit, I will probably
> have a small feel for things to pray for anyway.

Sounds like a plan. :-)



Tim Young <Tim.Young at LightSys.org> also wrote, in another email:

> You come with a bit of an idea of what business you are interested
> in, you have a skillset and focus, but no particular project?

Yes... and I don't think that it would be wise to decide on a
"particular project" without first doing a significant bit of
market research, i.e. talking with potential customers.  I haven't
done nearly enough of that yet.

> DotGnu and new standards for XML/SOAP could certainly be
> incorporated into a ton of projects...

That's true.  And in addition, I wouldn't mind having some business
activities which are not directly related to my primary technical
interests, as long as they're profitable and not in conflict with
my primary business vision.

> Of the various Free Software business opportunities that I know of,
> you have eliminated most of them as things that would suit your
> fancy.

This sounds like partly bad news and partly good news.  It's bad news
because it'll be harder for me to get started when I'm outside of the
more obvious business opportunities.  It's good news because it means
that I'll have a highly unique business -- that is good because it
makes it much easier to get PR, and also because it makes it easier
to attract highly talented people to work under conditions which don't
involve an exorbitant salary

> Ok, so let me throw out a possibility, and we will see if I read
> what you were saying, or if I am totally off.

I'm getting the impression that you're understanding me very well! :)

> There is a project out there, centrallix.org, that was developed by
> mission organizations but the long-term goal is that someone else
> will take centrallix and turn it into a Free Software business.
[..]
> It has the potential to revolutionize the way small business work.  But
> missions really are not interested in keeping it up.  The hope is
> that some other people will take the project and run with it,
> leaving missions to focus on the applications they write in
> Centrallix.  (The neat thing about this particular project is that
> many of the developers of it are non missionaries, and so if someone
> did start a business around it, there would probably be 3 or 4
> developers willing to jump on board immediately.)  Centrallix is
> about 98% of the way to the first development release.  It has one
> organization that is currently using it in-house.

This sounds all very good and interesting.  I've subscribed to the lists,
and I'll try it out for a bit when I find some time.

> I am not expecting you to jump at Centrallix.

Well this is certainly interesting, but of course jumping onto any
supposed opportunity without first doing proper "due diligence" is poor
business practice.

> Rather I am throwing it out as a real opportunity that will probably get a
> response that will help me understand more about your thoughts as to what
> your Free Software business will entail.

I don't want to limit it to just one project.  However I'll have to
start with a focus on one project, and then gradually extend the
realm of competence.

How far are we away from version 0.7.4?  (Is there a release date yet?)

What kinds of commercial use are possible right now at a "professional"
level of quality, with the current codebase?  (I don't want to start the
business in a way that requires significant up-front investments; rather
I want to start in a way that allows to start selling something right
away.)

Blessings,
Norbert.

- -- 
Founder & Steering Committee member of DotGNU, see http://dotgnu.org/
Free Software Business Strategy Guide   --->  http://FreeStrategy.info
Norbert Bollow, Weidlistr.18, CH-8624 Gruet (near Zurich, Switzerland)
Tel +41 1 972 20 59        Fax +41 1 972 20 69       http://norbert.ch
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