No price on integrity

I had dinner with a close friend from Novell (and his family) last night. He’s been there for over 10 years, and continues to believe in the company. I respect that. Whatever his thoughts on the patent deal and product direction (I didn’t ask – I wanted us to enjoy our meal :-), he’s committed to the company, yet also to the open source development community, as his role is directly tied to development. You can count on him to balance community interests against corporate interests.

It’s called integrity.

Mark Shuttleworth has also evidenced his integrity recently by proactively declaring that he’s not interested in a Microsoft patent deal. You can’t buy Mark’s opinion, and I’m convinced that this statement would be true regardless of how much money he had in the bank.

It’s called integrity.

At times, I believe the integrity of these two men could cause them to go in opposite directions, but the important thing is that they’re reliable and consistent in their actions. (Btw, this article from Keith McFarland about human consistency is very interesting on this topic….) I think that’s the thing that riles most in the open source community with the companies that have capitulated to Microsoft’s patent demands: it’s out of keeping with the ethos of the community.

I’m willing to concede that it may not be out of keeping with the ethos of the management of these companies, but is that an excuse for management or does it instead beg for different management? Not necessarily better management (as I think highly of Ron Hovsepian and others at these companies), but different management, more attuned to the communities they serve?

Or maybe it simply calls for better information. As noted above, my friend may well be a fan of the patent pact – I didn’t ask. But I know that if he went down that road, he’d be bending over backward to ensure that people understood the full rationale, and would also be sensitive to the fact that it’s an unpopular decision, and why.

For example, a friend of mine in our neighborhood is considering selling his house. We’ve been looking for a bigger house (4 kids + small house = too much familial love) and so I asked him about his. His response?

As for the house, we are still on the fence a bit, but if we do sell it we will overprice it a bit. We’ve had a few people come through and check things out, and the general consensus is that we could sell anywhere from $xxxx or more. We are thinking $xxxx [+$xxx] just to push our luck. I really don’t want you to buy the house though because I think we are overpricing it and I would feel very guilty.

It’s not the decision I’d like (“Matt, we’ll give it to you for free because you’ve been a good friend!”), but it’s candid and open. We don’t all have to agree, but candor helps ease the friction from disagreement.

Net net: I would like greater clarity in the market as to which way vendors are going to turn. With many, I already know the answer because I know the people involved. Their integrity is not for sale, or even where their integrity might not prevent them from signing such a deal, they also understand the community ethos.

But for the others, it would be good to know where you stand.