I was going to refrain from commenting...
Anyone who believes (or thinks) that an open source project can survive
without commercial support is far removed from "the real world". The number
of people working on open source project "just for the fun" or "to scratch
that itch" is IMO very small. In fact it is my opinion that any open source
project - without some form of integrated (!) commercial backing will fail
in the end.
Before we (as a company) decided to get involved with Cocoon and the open
source arena we had a discussion with Stefano on exactly this subject. His
opinion (and this is something I think is sooo true) is that using open
source software commercially - without "giving back" will eventually lead to
you (as a company - or person) being shouted down in the community.
Now there are various ways to give back to a project - as we discussed with
Stefano:
* Contributing Patches and Bug Fixes
* Donating components that were previously part of a product
* Actively working on the project
* Taking over a role in the project
* Testing the software and publishing your findings
* Writing documentation
* Writing articles to get the project "noticed"
* Presenting at conferences to get the project "noticed"
* Writing books to help anyone who wants to use the software
And probably many more
Well - guess what - we as a company (and Carsten and myself in particular)
have done all that in the past 2 years. And we still do. Every day.
And (thankfully) we are not alone. There are many great (commercially
orientated) people out there who are helping to move Cocoon forward. The
fact that the Apache licence allows this is one of the reasons Apache
projects are so successful and widely renowned.
The more commercial support Cocoon receives - whether in projects, books,
products based on Cocoon - the more successful it will become.
Matthew
--
Open Source Group Cocoon { Consulting, Training, Projects }
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Matthew Langham, S&N AG, Klingenderstrasse 5, D-33100 Paderborn
Tel:+49-5251-1581-30 [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.s-und-n.de
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Cocoon book:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0735712352/needacake-20
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