I do not see any issues if the existing projects that are slated to be moved to Extras adhere to the ASF 2.0 license but as I see it further I don't see any issues either if the license of any project is changed in future. I think it would be good for the project overall and while its not necessary that there would be just one company/maintainer of the code for any particular project, I believe anyone (individual or company) can use the base project (project at the moment with ASF 2.0) and enhance it, form a community in itself. At a point of time there could be a number of different flavors of the same project with different user groups and maintainer (individual or company). Its like linux OS distributed in different flavors, right? The quality of these project will definitely improve with a stiff competition from similar projects and the end user eventually have more options to find a right project for himself.
New projects of course can have ASF 2.0 or any other commercial license. On Mar 21, 2012, at 6:30 PM, Hans Bakker wrote: > (I also copied the user list because users are heavily impacted here. Users > please read the development forum at http://www.ofbiz.info) > > Hi Everybody interested in the future of ofbiz, > ------------------------------------------------------------- > *i am very concerned with the current route which is proposed by Jacopo in > the development mailing list: "Lose Weight Program for OFBiz"* > > Why? > > Have only a minimal core ERP with minimal functionality, anything extra is > moved to either: > 1. *Apache extras* (http://www.apache-extras.com) which is just a url link > menu into "Google projects" This will not be maintained by the Apache OFBiz > committers and only outside the Apache environment. > 2. *attic* (abandoned=deleted) > > Pushing out complete components and functions like for example all components > in the specialized directory such as e-commerce, project manager, asset > manager and others and also Birt (Reporting) integration out of the OFBiz > core system will actually mean: components will be abandoned even when stored > in "apache extra's" and will be picked up by commercial companies like mine > (Antwebsystems) and others and will promote them as commercial add-ons for a > fee. As far I see the responses, devs are interested in keeping the e-commerce under the specialpurpose directory. Did I mis-read? > > [my Antwebsystems CEO hat on] > Actually we (AntWebsystems) already started the process a couple of months > ago, we have internal chat/live chat(see our website), twitter, sitemap, > saas/tenant extension, shindig/igoogle integration, task manager and more > because a number of committers objected that we added more functions, so we > stopped contributing major functions. Not to mention that any such projects developed by AntWebsystems (I believe they are commercial right now) could be the next big projects in Extras and might attract a large number of users for contributions too. It may be easier for the customers to adopt to these projects if you decide to distribute it with ASF 2.0 :) > > [my Apache PMC member hat on] > This can now happen with anything that will be removed from the core system. > There are many articles about the commercialization of open source products > on the internet, examples are Sugercrm and Magento and OFBiz will be the next > one: > > *In the future, a reasonable OFBiz system cannot be be run without commercial > extra's! > * > Please keep this in mind if you react on the proposal "Lose Weight Program > for OFBiz": do not agree too easily. I am sure that this will help in large adoption of the project OFBiz. Regards Vikas > > [my Antwebsystems CEO hat on] > From a commercialization point of view please remove as much as > possible..... > [my Apache PMC member hat on] > Only remove the component/functions which are not maintained. > > Regards, > Hans Bakker > *Proud Apache OFBiz PMC member* and yes also CEO Antwebsystems Co.Ltd. >
