"Having seen KDE 4.0 survive its premature birth and live to
thrive, Seigo suggests that the recent history of the project has
lessons for the greater free software community.
""The biggest thing we can do in the free software world right
now," he says, "is realize that we have this great culture of
excellent and enjoyment. If we nurture this community, it is very
powerful and positive. We need to maintain that.
""At the same time, we need to be competitive with proprietary
offerings. Because we've shown that, when we don't, people are
pragmatic, and they will leave freedom and go back to proprietary
platforms."
""And, in the long run, that will leave us with nothing to show
except for a strange group of people that work on something
irrelevant. You have to be willing and able to move forward with
innovative, cutting edge, push-the-boundaries technology. We need
to really go, 'Hey, we're competing with these other two companies
that are producing proprietary stuff, and are not about to just go
away.' At the same time, we can't do that at the expense of what
makes us healthy and vibrant and enjoyable. We have to do both at
the same time, and I think we can."
