People

• Andy Hertzfeld - Andy has a great talent for creating innovative and highly polished GUI for consumer software.  I can trust him to deliver a GUI that knocks people out.
• John Anderson - Another guy who has proven his talents for building consumer software.  His WriteNow was simple and easy to use.  I haven't used any of his NeXT applications, but I have heard great things about them.
• Tim O'Reilly - With him on OSAF board, one can expect constant stream of guerilla marketing and publicity from O'Reilly.

OSAF Mission

OSAF's mission is to create and gain wide adoption of Open Source application software of uncompromising quality.  PIM is just the first project.  What will be next?  Which is worse, Microsoft announcing a competing product in the name of profit or OSAF doing the same in the name of community?

OSAF Financing

Mitch Kapor is putting up $5 million of his money.  That should be enough for three to four years with a staff of 14, some of them volunteers.  Once the first product is released, I am sure donations from box makers will start rolling in.  In return, the box makers will ask OSAF to build rest of the Office killer suite so they can ship Linux boxes with application suite of uncompromising quality.

Sense of Value

In countries like Korea, there was no software market because people did not see software as something you pay for.  When they bought a PC, it came with every software you will ever need.  Office?  AutoCAD?  dBase?  No problem.  While much has changed since, software piracy is rampant in Korea because people have no sense of value when it comes to software.  If they pay for it, its only because they might get raided.

What I am afraid of is the erosion in the sense of value for software.  If OSAF succeeds, consumers will have access to a wide array of high quality software for free.  Most likely, every PC will start to ship with them preloaded.  Every time a new OSAF product ships, a market segment will dies.  OSAF paints a picture of the future where consumers are expected to pay for contents and services, but software is free.

Path of Destruction

While Mitch may say and believe otherwise, I believe OSAF is a richman's Destructive Crusade against Microsoft's monopoly.  At strategic level, I agree with him that there are very few viable options against Office.  If the only path with reasonable chance of success leads to destruction of value, a cornerstone of market economy, should you take it?  My answer is no.  I'll admit that I am not 100% certain what lies at the end of OSAF's road.  I'll bet Mitch doesn't know either.

Wishful Thinking?

If I had a magic wand, I would:

1. Break up Microsoft into little companies around products.
2. Require all file formats to be documented and made public.
3. Forbid application bundling by publishers and box makers.

Two memes I am trying to impart to the community are:

• Software market is an ecology that can be destroyed.
  
  
• Free software is a double-edged sword.

It is human nature to see and hear only what we want to see and hear, for our ability to reason is not beyond the reach of emotions and desires.  When applied in mass, effects of our weakness are magnified to a level that engulfs even those who are trained to be objective.  Recent Dot Com Bubble is an example of this phenomenon.

I don't expect my opinions to deter OSAF.  I don't expect people to change their minds about free software either.  What I expect to achieve is planting a seed of doubt and raising a concern for the delicate balance of our ecology.