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Arise, you have nothing to lose but your barbed wire fences!

1994-12-13 - Re: Clarification of my remarks about Netscape

Header Data

From: db@Tadpole.COM (Doug Barnes)
To: kipp@warp.mcom.com (Kipp E.B. Hickman)
Message Hash: db3d744ed6ca97b574ebf970ca760245d1c4c2ac5c45f70887f1b909b1b3b91e
Message ID: <9412130108.AA12391@tadpole.tadpole.com>
Reply To: <9412121638.ZM17746@warp.mcom.com>
UTC Datetime: 1994-12-13 01:09:02 UTC
Raw Date: Mon, 12 Dec 94 17:09:02 PST

Raw message

From: db@Tadpole.COM (Doug Barnes)
Date: Mon, 12 Dec 94 17:09:02 PST
To: kipp@warp.mcom.com (Kipp E.B. Hickman)
Subject: Re: Clarification of my remarks about Netscape
In-Reply-To: <9412121638.ZM17746@warp.mcom.com>
Message-ID: <9412130108.AA12391@tadpole.tadpole.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


> Doug B.:
> >
> > Ah, it doesn't work with existing proxies, so we have to pay
> > you. Whether it is your true motivation true or not, this
> > apparent attempt to create a market for proprietary goods by
> > disrupting standards is at the core of the bad odor that your
> > company is giving off these days.
> 

Kipp:
> You are right. It doesn't work with existing proxy's. But existing proxy's
> can't do secure data transfers, so what's your point?

Rather than saying, "oh, our new 'standard' won't work with 
existing technology, so buy ours", you might say, "we will be
happy to work with the developers of existing proxies to make
necessary changes to be compatible with our product. Alternatively,
you could buy our proxy software which also has some additional
benefits of foo, bar and baz."  (Also, not every solution to
every Web security threat involves breaking existing proxies.)

But no, you blindly forge ahead, so full of yourself that you 
blissfully reinvent wheels (Perry), miss the real concerns of 
the users (Me), disrupt the marketplace (Amanda), and generally 
fail to think things through very well (Adam) or consider the work
of others (Perry).

Your three biggest problems are: arrogance, arrogance and 
arrogance.

Kipp:
> In any case, my personal opinion is that NCOM is being attacked with a
> catch-22. If we had kept the protocol proprietary, then we would have been
> shot. We went public with it and are getting shot. If we had waited the 2.5
> years to develop it, as a few here would seem to be advocating, then the market
> would shoot us.
> 

If you were willing to _read_ and to go to an occasional 
meeting, or even send out a post, "Hey, I'm about to sink
the resources of this company into coming up with yet another
transport layer security protocol, anyone got one already?",
then you might get less hostility, or you might not get used
for target practice so often.

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