Comments on: Qwaq Secures $7 Million in Funding From Alloy Ventures and Storm Ventures

By: Qwaq Gets Funded « The Trillionth Blog

Qwaq Gets Funded « The Trillionth Blog — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 22:55:02 +0000

[...] Qwaq Gets Funded November 28, 2007 Qwaq got funded with $7 million. Qwaq uses Squeak and Croquet to build a collaboration product. Read about it here on the weekly squeak blog. [...]

By: Qwaq is Hiring! « The Weekly Squeak

Qwaq is Hiring! « The Weekly Squeak — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 23:24:32 +0000

[...] reported earlier that Qwaq received funding, well today Qwaq announced that it is hiring. They are looking for a Software Quality Engineer and [...]

By: Ron Teitelbaum

Ron Teitelbaum — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 14:53:36 +0000

JP,

I’m amazed that you were able to make the jump from public funding of software research and open source software to creating poverty. I guess I fail to see how using public funds to create and support open source software that anyone can use is bad. Whether you are creating a company, using the software to teach a new generation of computer scientists or building educational software, practical applications are exactly the benefits we expect from public funding. I see the universities and students benefiting from this work as much as any potential company. Overall the availability of software for practical purposes is a benefit.

When you look closely at Qwaq and who is benefiting from this work you will find that the people that essentially created the software are running and working at the company. It would be very difficult to argue that they deserve less then anyone, including the universities to use this software. You can see that connection through the very close collaboration between Qwaq and these university projects.

As for token sharing of software advancements, I will agree that it is possible that some significant advancements may be slow to arrive in the open source versions, but I would point out that these development are expensive to develop and Qwaq should have the opportunity to recoup some of that expense. Overall even though this may be true the amount of code coming from Qwaq to the open source code is significantly more then you would expect. This makes me believe that the opposite of what you are suggesting is true. It seems to me, and this is just an opinion, that Qwaq believes that they would benefit from more companies developing Croquet, and they are supporting the open source code with an eye on developing a market for them to compete in. Everyone involved will benefit from greater adoption of Croquet. I think they can “give back” and need to do so to create their business. They will support open standards in order to build bridges with other communities, universities and companies. It’s not marketing, it really is just good software and good people sharing and creating a new virtual world.

Ron

By: JP

JP — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 11:34:57 +0000

Congratulations on more smalltalk jobs. But let me make a prediction – Qwaq is using a free technology and all the background work and research that went into it, they’re not paying all the people who worked on it, and they’re going to go ahead and focus on obscenely profiting from the technology. They’ll put a few nickels in the pot as they go along, just to give the apologists something to crow about, and they’ll take huge amounts of funds out of the public trough – after all, who funds “free software” but universities, which are funded by tax breaks and other forms of indirect and direct public funding. I have more respect for mobsters than for marketing people – if you’re going to steal the baby’s candy, don’t insult my intelligence by tucking in the corner of it’s blanket afterwards and calling it childcare. Companies are there to profit. If they really “gave back” they’d be out of business. So congratulations on Qwaq and its investors finding a new way to steal public money, I hope you choke on the poverty you create.