2009/2/20 Robert Burrell Donkin <robertburrelldon...@gmail.com>: > On 2/20/09, Thilo Goetz <twgo...@gmx.de> wrote: >> Niclas Hedhman wrote: >>> On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 4:31 PM, Thilo Goetz <twgo...@gmx.de> wrote: >>> >>> <snip reason="user community reported healthy" /> >>> >>>> My pet hypothesis (or maybe I'm just looking for excuses) is >>>> this: UIMA is heavily used in academia. Now academics have no >>>> problems with open source, to the contrary. But they have an >>>> overwhelming need to publish and build up a reputation. >>> >>> Does this have to mutually exclusive?? >>> >>> Can you perhaps contact these individuals one-by-one and get their >>> view on how they see it. Perhaps ask them to publish their work in >>> parallel, and perhaps the 'OSS bug' will bite a couple of them?? >> >> I have talked to quite a few of them, and I'll keep hitting on them :-) > > Yes, IMO Apache hasn't really optimised it's interface with academia. > I have some observations but hopefully other folks will jump in: > > 1. Perhaps Apache could approach this a little more like an industrial > partner, perhaps by enabling an initial separation between academic > research and the open source project which is the beneficiary. Some > universities may feel more comfortable contributing through an > industrial partner using an open source business model than directly > to Apache.
I would suggest this is better let to the existing industrial partnership work that takes place within the academic sector. That is, if company X wants to bring briliant idea Y from the academic sector to the ASF then they should do it through work under existing agreements. In other words, I feel it is not the foundations job to make this happen, but the committers to projects who are involved with industrial partners. Again, anyone in the UK wishing to explore this kind of thing is welcome to contact my day job team at i...@oss-watch.ac.uk for help in doing this. > 2. Perhaps we can do more to help academics who work with Apache to > build their reputation. Apache's brand is one of it's key assets and > so mutally building reputations may be of significant mutual > advantage. +1000 Whilst engagement with the ASF cannot (yet) count towards the official reputation system of academics there is a huge CV benefit to have the ASF brand engagement. Only yesterday I was in a meeting in which I used this argument in a University looking at incubating a project. Staff retention and development is very important in the academic sector as well as the commercial sector. > 3. Apache - at the project level - has significant intersections with > academia but lacks a knowledge center. Perhaps the members should ask > the board to establish an academic relations committee and VP to > manage this. Interesting idea. It certainly overlaps with my day job. I'd have to do some juggling of time to make this happen, but if there is enough buy in then I'm +1 Ross -- -- Ross Gardler OSS Watch - awareness and understanding of open source software development and use in education http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org