Hi Justin Hill, Justin McLean is factually correct, but I have a slightly different viewpoint.
Before you start signing ICLAs and Software Grants, I would first consider the financial aspects: how will you and your team find the time (which usually means money) to continue to contribute to Moonshine if you donate it to the Apache Software Foundation? Apache software releases cannot be sold for money. And product names and trademarks are supposed to be assigned to the ASF as well, so if you donate Moonshine, then you can't decide later to try to make a non-free version and still call it Moonshine I have seen two different ways that Apache projects have for-profit ecosystems: 1) The Apache Subversion project somehow decided that for-profits can use the SVN acronym in product names, but not "Subversion" itself. Apache Subversion is command-line and free, and SmartSVN, TortoiseSVN and host of other for-profit applications leverage the free Subversion, add value to it (usually GUI) and sell it for a price. 2) When Adobe acquired PhoneGap, the PhoneGap folks contributed the main body of code to Apache which became Apache Cordova, but Adobe adds value and sells it as PhoneGap and I think IBM also sells it under a different name. Other companies have also donated the core of their code-base to Apache under a different name so they could maintain the branding they have established for their for-profit products. So to me, that's the first set of decisions. Next, it is important to understand that Apache is really about communities more than code. Once you can describe what it is you want to donate and what you want to call it, we can have a discussion on this mailing list about whether the same set of folks in the Apache Flex project will be the same set of folks working on whatever you decide to donate. Starting your own Apache project is a lot more work than having your code donated to an existing project, but many folks at Apache are wary of projects that have too many sub projects. Apparently there have been problems in the past. After that, as Justin points out, is figuring out what to do about the LGPL code, and finding out if the original code owners are ok with donating whatever you decide to donate to Apache. When you get that far, you will know that you "can" donate whatever it is you decide to donate. Then it is time to fill out a Software Grant. More in-line below. > >> 1) Alex, do you see a value in having Moonshine IDE be contributed >> officially to Apache FlexJS? Whether it becomes part of the Apache Flex project or its own project/community, the Apache Software Foundation welcomes any existing community that wants to grow under the Apache governance model. I'd be interested in what others think about the impact having an IDE within the project will have on the third-party IDEs. It might cause unrest in the community. On the other hand, if you are donating some code-intelligence, and other features and the other IDE manufacturers can leverage that in their IDEs, then that might help the community. My question for you is the same: What value do you see for bringing this code to Apache? > >> 3) Would we still have rights to contribute? I don't think any of us >>are >> code contributors right now. Historically, Apache Flex has voted in the authors of code donated via software grants as committers around the same time as the software grant is accepted. I would imagine we would do the same. While most folks do earn committer rights by contributing patches and helping out on mailing lists, it doesn't make sense to me to require such steps for code donors. You have expertise and momentum, and we want to get out of your way so you can keep on going and attract new contributors. > > >> 4) Would we still have control or at least influence over the >> Moonshine-ide.com website, or whatever the corresponding Apache page(s) >> would be? I think that will depend on what you end up donating and what it is called. There are restrictions on what you can do with a site with a domain name that uses the trademark you are doing to donate to Apache. Anyway, think about the above and let us know what you decide. We can keep the discussion going on this thread (public threads are always preferred), but if there is sensitive topics, we can discuss them off-list or in person. HTH, -Alex
