[ic] Re: Interchange now a Red Hat product

Birgitt Funk birgitt@my-school.com
Wed, 31 Jan 2001 01:47:33 -0500 (EST)


On Tue, 30 Jan 2001, Mike Heins wrote:

> Dear All,
> 
> I am excited to announce that Interchange is now a Red Hat product.  This
> will be announced publicly at Linux World in New York tomorrow, Wednesday,
> Jan. 31.

[snip]

Dear Mike,

yeah ! My warmest congratulations for this wonderful development. That
is truly terrific. Wow ! I hope you don't mind that I mention that
here, but I do, because I many ways, observing you work on Minivend
from summer 1996 til today has taught me a lot.
 
I have often felt that MiniVend had two faces, on the one side
you wanted to make it easy and simple and on the other you wanted
to make it powerful. I think that it was always a struggle for you 
to not be torn apart between those two goals. 

And sometimes I wondered which side will win. Then I always remembered a
sentence you said to me in the first of your two visits, when I became
your customer in 1996, a sentence which you just mentioned at the side
incidentally, but with some intensity that it stuck to my mind:

"I want to make THE open source e-commerce application for the small,
independent ISP."

Well, you better believe Mike Heins, when he says something like that,
even if it's only in a little subclause. Look where he came from and where
he went to. That says it all.

I hope you give the RedHat guys "hell" and develop whatever you have
in mind now. Congrats again. Enjoy a bottle with your wife tonight and
be very happy. You really deserve it. 

Best
Birgitt 

P.S. And tell Mr. Young he should give IC users a discount on his
training classes... :-)