So I think there are a couple of things I'd personally would like to hit /
speak to at this event. In part as we have other parts of the industry
approaching this much more from a money/company driven (or take your
responsibility) perspective. In priority order:
1) "Community over Code" and good governance standards
Software in general, and open source software in particular, is becoming key to
civic society - these days you cannot run a country (or even participate in the
democratic process on the legislative side ) without it.
That means that, like all industries that rose to importance, society
increasingly needs to rely on & trust "us". Or ensure it can trust us by
regulation (in a lot of countries - industrial regulation (as opposed to self
regulation, guilds, etc) started to appear when steam-boilers went bang in the
middle of populated areas).
We're simply too important to ignore.
In apache - we understand a lot of this already very well - and have a culture
(community over code) and a set of checks and balances, or governance, (votes
for releases, process, security policies) that is conductive to deserving that
trust.
We do not 'sling code onto github' or over a wall and call it `open source'--
but rather insist that there is a community behind it. Or retire it (to the
attic) when there is not -- and it would become a risk or liability because of
no maintenance, etc.
=> so I would like to further this "community over code" notion.
And emphasise that just `throwing code over the wall' is not what helps build a
body of (civic, or otherwise) technology that can be the foundations of a
digital public infrastructure or society.
2) "capacity and capability"
Software is unique and odd - in that you can make perfect copies. And that the
fact that you use it `too' comes at virtually no cost to me. And if you do &
feed me back some small improvement, bug report or something - it probably is a
win-win for me to share it. However that also means that you need relatively
few developers at its core.
This gives rise to two risks you need to negate. Firstly simply that of
knowledge capture and sustainability (capacity is not an issue - few are
needed). Which is not always in the interest of the corporate funders of the
volunteers (e.g. in apache). Nor in the interst of any corporate funders
(period) -- e.g. in cases where sponsors buy board-seats or strategic control
of open source houses.
But secondly - that of ensuring that a sufficiently wide body of people builds
up the capability to participate with, and over time replace, this relatively
small group of core developers. Especially in the light of SaaS and similar
technologie which curtails how many people are close enough to the coal face to
pick up the needed knowledge. Or at companies; where the existence of readily
available large solutions makes picking up on that skill less needed.
So in a way to break through a `fatal' aspect of well build technology - that
you do not need to know about it anymore.
=> so. would like to argue for physical places, of sufficient size to
build the right human culture, to work, learn and build these critical skills.
and that this is _NOT_ the problem of open source - but the
responsibility of society.
This is not something uncommon - we have plenty of industrial areas where
countries build & keep strategic and tactical capcity. And in Europe - this is
increasingly done pan-european.
3) "Software matters too much"
Software matters too much for communities and societies -- so I would
personally not want to allow large corporate interest buy themselves control
of this.
I am worried about a self amplifying and 'fiscally welcome' pattern; where we
blame some industry for a problem in society. And were we then expect 'them' to
resolve this; or pay for something as some sort of penance. But in return then
effectively allows the existing and richest players get even more control over
the playing field.
As opposed to letting society set & enforce their vision of what is right. And
either pick up the tab for that - or tax/fine those that do not comply -and-
then allow society to choose where to invest that money in. Rather than let
the inmates run the asylum & direct the funding.
Apache is in a vey good position here - we are one of the defacto industry
bodies - but unlike most - we are a community of (people) volunteer(ed by their
employers dujour) - not a set of companies. In many ways we are more like the
IEEE, the IETF, the institute of chartered engineers or a medical society -
-than say, the GSMA or the W3C.
And we have a stellar track record when it comes to resisting & neutering such
corporate funding / direction attemts.
But the corollary/downside of that is that we're also ill equipped to do the
`boring grunt work' that is often needed once things become so key to society.
Such as secretariat services, testing, certification, measuring quality &
reporting, etc.
=> so would like to argue that this is a role for society; and that we
need places where our community can meet which those that want this - and where
those that want this participate in our community. But without funding `through
us' troubling the waters.
Just like we see in many other industries - where some institute simply acts as
the coordinator for such information in the public context. And this also
addresses interoperability and standards.
With kind regards,
Dw
> On 27 Oct 2022, at 12:25, Jean-Baptiste Onofré <j...@nanthrax.net> wrote:
>
> By the way, I'm pretty interested to participate on these workshops:
>
> 1.1 - Open Source Processors for the Cloud Continuum
> 2.1 - Open Source Software and Cloud Services and Applications: On the
> way to more interoperable cloud services
> 3.4 - Exploring practical solutions to ensure long term sustainability
> of open source software
>
> I chatted today with some Eclipse Foundation guys: they plan to be
> there as well.
>
> Thoughts ?
>
> Regards
> JB
>
>
> On Thu, Oct 27, 2022 at 11:38 AM Jarek Potiuk <ja...@potiuk.com> wrote:
>>
>> Yep. Thanks DW :)
>>
>> On Thu, Oct 27, 2022 at 10:43 AM Christofer Dutz
>> <christofer.d...@c-ware.de> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> Thanks for taking this coordination over.
>>>
>>> They did disarm my worries, that the panelists would be from the industry.
>>> It seems this is not the case.
>>>
>>> But they do explicitly welcome suggestions for people to be acting as
>>> panelist on these sessions.
>>> So, we can be more actively involved. If we want to.
>>>
>>> And I agree .. this is not something we can sit out like an ApacheCon CFP
>>> and submit ideas a minute before the deadline.
>>>
>>> Chris
>>>
>>> From: Dirk-Willem van Gulik <di...@webweaving.org.INVALID>
>>> Date: Thursday, 27. October 2022 at 10:24
>>> To: dev@community.apache.org <dev@community.apache.org>
>>> Subject: Re: European Commission Workshop day on Open-Source Sustainability
>>> I've been in touch with the various organizers (who do not seem to be that
>>> organised).
>>>
>>> Happy to bundle things once we reach some sort of conclusion here. But
>>> suspect we need to do this in the next hours and days; not week.
>>>
>>> That said - these meetings are open - so anyone can 'show up' and
>>> participate. In many ways this type of meeting where the EC tries to inform
>>> itself are very much in a spirit akin to open source; just show up,
>>> contribute meaningfully, constructively and have knowledge/information to
>>> bring.
>>>
>>> Dw
>>>
>>>> On 26 Oct 2022, at 23:14, Jarek Potiuk <ja...@potiuk.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Do you have a specific contact or conversation you can forward? Or is
>>>> it a generic address we should find ourselves?
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Oct 26, 2022 at 10:55 PM Christofer Dutz
>>>> <christofer.d...@c-ware.de> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Hi all,
>>>>>
>>>>> I think we probably should at least tell them as soon as possible, that
>>>>> we want to attend and which seessions, which people would be willing to
>>>>> participate.
>>>>>
>>>>> As I mentioned, unfortunately I won’t be able to attend.
>>>>>
>>>>> Chris
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> From: Jean-Baptiste Onofré <j...@nanthrax.net>
>>>>> Date: Wednesday, 26. October 2022 at 19:42
>>>>> To: dev@community.apache.org <dev@community.apache.org>
>>>>> Subject: Re: European Commission Workshop day on Open-Source
>>>>> Sustainability
>>>>> Hi Chris,
>>>>>
>>>>> I can be there as well if needed.
>>>>>
>>>>> Regards
>>>>> JB
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, Oct 25, 2022 at 10:44 AM Christofer Dutz
>>>>> <christofer.d...@c-ware.de> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi all,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> as I attended the last set of workshops in pre-pandemic times, it seems
>>>>>> the European Commission is continuing to try to understand open-source.
>>>>>> In this quest it seems they are planning on doing a set of workshops on
>>>>>> a one-day session:
>>>>>> https://swforum.eu/events/open-source-workshops-computing-sustainability
>>>>>>
>>>>>> As last time Willem and I traveled there as we didn’t want the
>>>>>> corporates to take over the narrative and explain to the European
>>>>>> commission how Open-Source works, perhaps we should participate.
>>>>>> I mean … we’re a pretty important factor in open-source, I guess.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> What do you folks think?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Chris
>>>>>
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