I wanted to keep the community informed about my involvement with the
DRDA spec. As you know, several companies are interested in helping
evolve DRDA. However, no-one is keen on renting an official seat on the
DBIOP Consortium, the group which owns the spec. Those seats cost $25K
per year. The Consortium has worked out the following arrangement:
1) IBM does rent an official seat.
2) Other companies can serve in an advisory role, reviewing the
Consortium's work.
3) The IBM representative will present proposals volunteered by these
advisers.
I will serve as Sun's adviser to the DBIOP Consortium. The Consortium
has confirmed that, in this role, I can share proposals with the larger
Derby community. That is, I can continue to work in public.
I have some misgivings about this arrangement as a long-term solution
for an open source community. However, in the short term, this process
lets us make progress. I don't get the impression that standards bodies
have good models for how to deal with open source efforts. If anyone can
recommend a good resource on this topic, please let us all know.
Regards,
-Rick
