Mark, I believe that we have now reached the point in this conversation where we respectfully agree to disagree.
Best regards, Mike Milinkovich Office: +1.613.224.9461 x228 Mobile: +1.613.220.3223 [email protected] > -----Original Message----- > From: Mark Wielaard [mailto:[email protected]] > Sent: May-09-11 6:12 AM > To: [email protected] > Cc: [email protected]; [email protected] > Subject: RE: OpenJDK Governing Board Minutes: 20011/4/21 > > On Sun, 2011-05-08 at 18:17 -0400, Mike Milinkovich wrote: > > My humble apologies for causing offense. However, my definition of an > > "honest discussion" is one where there is a chance that there can be > > movement or compromise on the issue at hand. In this case, since I do > > not believe that there is any hope of that happening, I think it is > > more honest to be clear. I'm sorry that you find what is meant as > > candour to be offensive. > > To be candid in reply, if you really believe that no discussion can take > place on the core principles of what it means to be a member of this > project, then I think you are just making a mockery of the whole idea of > project participation and governance. Sure you can set this up as to be > a Oracle/IBM duo-poly, which is governed by some cross-company > agreements that don't hold for any other participant and where some > stuff gets thrown around for those who like to do their own thing > (somewhere else), but I hope that isn't the goal. > > > I appreciate that I am an outsider to the OpenJDK community. However, > > I am pretty involved in the broader world of Java. I believe that I > > was invited to be on the GB because I have some very specific > > experience in constructing vendor-neutral governance. I am confident > > that I've had a positive and constructive influence on many of > > directions that has been taken. > > And I am sure you do the best you can given you are being invited to > give input and the current makeup of the board. But my point was not > that your input is wrong (it isn't). It was that the makeup of the board > is totally out of whack if you care about anybodies motivations to join > OpenJDK except for Oracle's and IBM's, who dominate the board. Of course > your input and the input and motivations of those particular vendors is > important. But if this project wants to be effective we have to figure > out a way to protect and encourage the input and motivations of others. > I am just saying the current setup has obvious blind-spots. > > > For the rest of your email, I obviously cannot speak for Oracle. > > I was not asking you to. I wanted to point out some (perceived) pain > points, that I feel are caused by neglecting to protect the motivations > of others contributing to the project. Please study that list of > examples and try to figure out how these things can be done smoother. > And how the participation agreement, bylaws and governance board can > help with that. > > > However, it is my strong belief that there are contractual > > obligations which require them to aggregate the IP. > > It is my strong belief that the current OCA is overreaching and goes way > beyond any contractual obligations Oracle might have. But that is just > our believes. Lets find out. And then decide how fair the current setup > is to all participants. And how to fix it. > > > At the heart of this issue is the balancing act between the free > > community and the pre-existing commercial ecosystem. The set of > > constraints to be solved are extremely complex and compromises are an > > inevitable result. > > You also seem to forget about the pre-existing free software ecosystem. > For many this project is the cumulation and reward of 15 years of hard > work to liberate Java. We have won, that is great. But do we want this > to be the end of the road? Should those that care about moving libre > java forward now retreat again and do all their innovation separate in > IcedTea, IcedRobot, just take the GPLed code and not contribute back? > That would be a mistake IMHO. The motivation of a lot of people in the > free community is to come together and provide all end users one common > set of core java implementations that they can freely rely on. This is > why GNU Classpath was a series of mergers of existing projects. It would > be ironic if now that we have united almost all free java > implementations, we would reverse and start to fork again. Please take a > long and hard look at the participation agreements, your proposed board > setup, bylaws, etc. and think whether they really protect the > motivations of everybody to contribute, encourage those not represented > on the board to participate in and innovate inside the OpenJDK project > without fear that their contributions will be marginalized. It would be > bad IMHO if any outside contribution would be limited to small bug fixes > here and there and people will take real innovations somewhere else. > Lets grow Java's future together. > > Thanks, > > Mark
