justauser

My work is my life and hence my 501c3. Either I'm fulfilled that I'm able to "do what I want" or I'm just a stick in the mud. I also don't plan to retire.

We can substitute work/employment for anything that you value. Family? Religious/spiritual beliefs/non-beliefs? Are you saying you'll stand for some value/idea/principle...up to a certain price? Nothing is verboten?

My S Corp. is not for sale. Neither is my 501c3 which will dissolve with my passing. Can you explain to me how "any" company is for sale for the right offer?

The diamond ring is a silly simplistic example of where some people don't have a price. If my spouse has a 5 carat diamond band, does she subscribe to some idea that if a 6 carat diamond ring were offered by someone else then that must surely be a better opportunity and "sell out?"

Some individuals don't have have a price for some things in life.

A private company probably. If a public company were to do that, then I think the shareholders might not agree with your opinion.

But who knows, along comes Microsoft who can write off huge amounts like the $6.3 billion for aQuantive.

Sure, it wasn't meant to be snarky. I think a lot of folks simply have vastly different measurements for success. Some think it is binary meaning either total success or total failure. Others define multiple levels of success. Tie money and success together and the resulting discussions can be quite inflammatory.

I've seen a few folks chime in here already that one of the reasons they work for themselves is that for them freedom is greater than money. Not everyone agrees with that but wouldn't some personal and business interactions benefit from a bit more transparency of goals or stated missions? If you want to shoot for the stars, financially speaking or regarding market coverage, then tell me. That's great and I applaud your enthusiasm. If you are happy just providing reasonable service and expect to make a reasonable return then tell me too. At least that will allow me to make a somewhat informed decision about possibly interacting with you. Don't make us guess as most people are terrible gamblers.

What's the difference between $9.99 and $99.99(or feel free to shift the decimal depending upon whatever economic demesne you fall under)? Several of the leading karma members here regularly chime in about raising prices. If small company A makes the absolute best widget X for market Y with market Y x2 prices that it is well-received but the revenue did not match expectations and they end up being acquired by a large company or investor then how is this any different? I never would have guessed Fisker cars would have trouble.

Can you point to me where I said that? My posts have been to the effect of "hey little companies, if you're open to being waved to by big companies then let me know before I buy into your company's offerings."

Is the size of a diamond on a wedding ring a similar comparison?

Who was demanding a ceiling on the compensation? By expanding into a Windows userbase(size and subset of customers willing to pay presumed to be larger than the Apple userbase), the ceiling potentially could have been of cathedral proportions. If Sparrow lacked the desire or skill to expand to Windows, nothing limited them from creating other Appleland products. They already had a great reputation which would have lowered the hurdle for the potential success of product number two.

If my paying $9 for a widget is not good enough isn't it ok to tell me things are not going as well as expected and you're looking for solutions? If you leave me in the dust and come back next week as Parentco Widget Version 2 then at the very least you'll cause me to raise my eyebrows.

Maybe it is to the point now where it is disingenuous for a company NOT to have a banner on every page stating if they are open to investments or acquihire? At least users would know there is an intention/desire/dream to head for greener pastures if given the chance.

It is quite alright to disclose as a small business owner that things are slow or somethings are not quite going to plan. If you've got a userbase that loves your product, it is amazing what goodwill can do to help find a solution.

You guys go realize that it is ok to dissolve a company and in the case of a software company, release or open-source the code right? If the service was popular, someone will pick up the torch and carry on with it.

This might just be the quote of the decade! Yes, I know I'll get downvoted.

Not to bring my sour notes from the discussion on the just announced Sparrow team acquisition but the Acrylic blog post mentions that the products and services remain and the wording makes it appear to be a hire(not an acquisition) if that makes you feel any safer.

Unless the product or service meets the qualifications I mentioned then you can presume I'm not going to recommend it. Some companies that have been acquired have "done right" and released their product as open source afterwards. I would like to see more companies make this part of their agreement before purchase or use. While I'm comfortable with many things technical, many are not but open-sourcing a popular product will more likely than not allow those non-technical users to just pick up the use of that product with other providers.

A recent example is from Moxie's company Whispersystems and the open-sourcing of their Red Phone product. This came after their acquisition/sale by Twitter.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4256801

Does all of this greatly reduce my access to the latest and greatest? Yes it does but then often what is portrayed as the greatest by popularity is not necessarily a great product. And one further note of clarification, if this service is meant to be consumed in a disposable nature then obviously I've got no qualms about something like that as I enjoy actively participating in the world. There's a reason for pragmatism.

So I should read this as all of the small business owners in the world should either just give up or strive to be acquired by ACME corp? I think we have a very different understanding of the word "successful."

Well said. We're seeing a lot of "ship and dump" from startups these days. I'm to the point now where I don't recommend a startup to friends and family or use for business purposes unless their product is self-hostable(and release of source code upon an acquisition or corporate dissolution) or open-source. As you can imagine, the number of products I recommend has dwindled to almost nothing since I've been burned so much myself.

If I read the grandparent correctly(and I do agree), the best destination is not Apple, Google or anyone for that matter but rather to stay in the game as an independent.

Where are the small companies that are building for sustainment? All of these product disappearances do have a long-term effect of causing users to hesitate before signing up to use your offering.

Regarding the use of LXC, I presume since it is a container you're still on the same version/release as the host which in this case is Ubuntu 12.04? So this is the new open-source lock in?

When is someone going to create a tiny gui-less linux distro meant for purposes like this (local and uploaded to your hosting provider) which can then run in KVM and company? And by tiny, I don't mean Debian minimal or an equivalent Fedora. I mean a default size of probably 50MB and not much more for your choice of localization/i18n. Then simple package management to install your language platform and database support.

Trekkin posted yesterday in the discussion regarding Microsoft's SkyDrive (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4265621) and not being familiar with the project I asked him to post a ShowHN so more folks could chime in regarding the use of clientside JS cryptography.

I asked about the library/implementation used and it is BouncyCastle compiled/convertered to JS using GWT.

The common discussion/blog references I've also pointed out but for everyone else have a look at these: http://rdist.root.org/2010/11/29/final-post-on-javascript-cr... and http://www.matasano.com/articles/javascript-cryptography/ .

Charlotte really suffered with the financial mess as BOFA and Wachovia were the heart of the city. Winston Salem and Greensboro don't have a lot to offer. Asheville is one my favorite cities but just doesn't have a lot going on either unless you're on your own.

The Triangle really is a good place. You've got UNC@Chapel Hill, NC State and Duke all within a short(car) distance. Cisco and NetApp have a large presence out on Kit Creek in the Park in Cary. At the time I left that area I believe Cisco's campus was 12 or 13 buildings and NetApp was up to 4. IBM still has a significant footprint there. And Red Hat is headquartered there.

There is a lot of small startup stuff happening in Durham(American Tobacco District).

Here's a good resource: http://www.downtowndurhamstartups.com/content/startup+direct...

Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill-Morrisville-Cary-Apex : Take your pick and you'll find a lot going on. On a map basically look at the intersection of Highway 55 and 54 and you're looking at the center from everything.

Or you could just head down to the Steele Creek area or further south to the hotbed of Fort Mill. On a serious note, you haven't explored the Triangle?

I see Moxie is one of the authors on the draft. Is this an outgrowth/pivot of Convergence?

Induction does look good.

A bit uglier but if you need to support quite a few databases maybe Razor is another good alternative. I've used it for years. It is not open source though.

http://www.razorsql.com/

How long before Yammer moves off of Java and on to DotNet?

Already discussed in this thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4245179

Sorry we have to check. Are you human?

Thanks for replying. Excellent choice on BouncyCastle and it never occurred to me the clever compilation to JS using GWT. With that said, why not use the OpenPGP (RFC 4880) support instead of PKCS#1?

How about doing a ShowHN so we can get some more eyes on your new product? There are quite a few security folks here who can more adroitly chime in regarding the use of clientside JS. You may have seen this post as well, http://www.matasano.com/articles/javascript-cryptography/ , which was written by Thomas (user tptacek) who is quite active in participation here.

Thanks for sharing aes.io. That's the first I've heard of this service. Since their a web app with client-side encryption, I presume their using javascript. If so, any idea how they address the problems mentioned in this post ( http://rdist.root.org/2010/11/29/final-post-on-javascript-cr... ).

Update: Looks like they are using some kind of embedded flash. Does that mean a flash or actionscript cryptography implementation?

I am really weary of this. Apple, I accept you've had some innovative ideas but being a leader in the patent process and IP ownership is not something that many look upon favorably. Don't forget it wasn't too many years ago that Microsoft "invested" in you and really kept you afloat.

My Mac 128K has a frowny face most of the time these days and not because of geriatric ailments.

Very interesting. This is a brilliant idea but I'm honestly surprised something like this wasn't done by RIM(Blackberry). This is a major market for Blackberry and they are still releasing new 2G phones(e.g. 9220 just released).

Just an FYI but I'm fairly certain wdahher is Waseem Daher who is the cofounder of Ksplice. So if you're wanting to hear it directly from the "horse's mouth", this is probably a good place to ask some questions.

Explain that to users AND businesses who trust Dropbox with sensitive information.

But this doesn't mean anything though right since all encryption happens clientside right? Oh...wrong service. This is Dropbox so they have the key on their end.