While in California, Raymond also managed to squeeze in
a visit to VA Research, a Santa Clara-based company
selling workstations with the GNU/Linux operating
system preinstalled. Convened by Raymond, the meeting
was small. The invite list included VA founder Larry
Augustin, a few VA employees, and Christine Peterson,
president of the Foresight Institute, a Silicon Valley
think tank specializing in nanotechnology.
"The meeting's agenda boiled down to one item: how to
take advantage of Netscape's decision so that other
companies might follow suit?" Raymond doesn't recall
the conversation that took place, but he does remember
the first complaint addressed. Despite the best efforts
of Stallman and other hackers to remind people that the
word "free" in free software stood for freedom and not
price, the message still wasn't getting through. Most
business executives, upon hearing the term for the
first time, interpreted the word as synonymous with
"zero cost," tuning out any follow up messages in short
order.
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