I've snipped stuff from the top and bottom of Steve's post. My comments are below.
On 6/8/2013 8:12 PM, Steve Stallings wrote: > > We should be so lucky. > > The LinuxCNC (nee EMC) community is a very diverse bunch. > > Some folks have been involved for only a few months, others > have been around since 1996. > > Some are only modestly involved. Some devote most of their > waking hours to working with it, even if they never actually > run a real machine with it. > > Some believe that LinuxCNC should be a religion and needs > to be actively promoted to the unwashed masses. Others feel > that it just IS and should be left alone to exist in peace. > > Some come to it as a free and excellent body of code that > is available for their own personal use and others see it as > part of what provides their livelihood. (Disclaimer, I hope > to be among the latter.) > > Some believe that the code must be protected by strong licensing > from those who might attempt to use it without contributing > back to the community. Others believe that it should be sown > upon the earth freely for anyone to use in any fashion they > wish without the hassles of legal contracts. > > Some want there to be a formal organization that manages the > future of LinuxCNC. Others are allergic to any form of control. > > That LinuxCNC has continued to be developed proves that people > do like it and find it worthy of their time and effort to improve > it, despite the different view points on how it should evolve. > > I do hope that the session in Wichita continues in the same > spirit as past versions and functions as an opportunity to > improve the code while going lightly upon the substance of > governance. The chance to have a significant number of > people face to face in Wichita to discuss and work on > LinuxCNC is a great opportunity, but lets not forget that > the community is much larger than the fortunate ones who > can attend in person. > > Steve's post raises the important question of how we will proceed considering the disparate views of this group. My personal view is that the major stakeholders should have the major say. I would define the major stakeholders as: 1 -- The people who have contributed the most 2 -- The people who have the most invested Since most of us will not be in Wichita, or will only be there part of the time, I think it important that we try to characterize the stakeholders and their views prior to the meeting. For that reason, I'd like to suggest that people who consider themselves stakeholders answer the following questions (which I've based on Steve's thoughtful post -- and used many of his words without a license to do so). 1 -- How long have you been involved in LinuxCNC? 2 -- Do you consider yourself to be heavily involved or only modestly involved? What is the nature of your involvement? As a developer? As a user? 3 -- So you believe that LinuxCNC should be actively promoted or that it should be left alone to exist in peace? 4 -- Do you come to it as a free and excellent body of code available for your own use or do you see it as part of what provides their livelihood? 5 -- Should it be protected by strong licensing from those who might attempt to use it without contributing back to the community? Or should it be sown upon the earth freely for anyone to use in any fashion they wish without the hassles of legal contracts? 6 -- Should there be a formal organization that manages the future of LinuxCNC? If you come to Wichita, it would be helpful if you've thought about these questions. If you don't (and if you care) you should make your opinions heard. [For those who will be in Wichita, I have an additional question. What is the difference between a meeting and a bull session? My answer is below.] I'm cross posting this to emc-developers and emc-users. Regards, Ken [Ken's answer to the question -- A meeting starts with an agenda and ends with minutes. Consider this a suggestion for the Wichita participants in the licensing/governance/... meetings. -- KL] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ How ServiceNow helps IT people transform IT departments: 1. A cloud service to automate IT design, transition and operations 2. Dashboards that offer high-level views of enterprise services 3. A single system of record for all IT processes http://p.sf.net/sfu/servicenow-d2d-j _______________________________________________ Emc-developers mailing list Emc-developers@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-developers
