Landon, I'd be more interested in measuring the quality (and other things) of open source PROJECTS rather than corporations. The quality of a corporation's contribution really wouldn't change how much effort (or money) I put into an open source project (or whether I would recommend it to someone), but the quality of the project itself might.
And to answer your specific question, perhaps it would be better to reward corporations (and individuals?) who contribute. Maybe a Bronze/Silver/Gold/Platinum status recognition or induction into an Open Source Hall of Fame? More carrot, less stick. Brent Fraser GeoAnalytic Inc. Calgary, Alberta ----- Original Message ----- From: "Landon Blake" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, April 20, 2007 11:44 AM Subject: [Geowanking] Measuring Open Source Citenzenship I've been thinking about writing a short article on the involvement of corporations in the open source world. Specifically, I want to describe a system or set of rules for measuring the quality of a company's involvement in an open source community. In other words, I want to provide some measuring sticks that can help developers and managers answer the question "What type of citizen is this company in the open source community?". I think these guidelines can help developers and users that want to evaluate the merit of companies that claim to follow the open source or FOSS idealogy. I think it is very possible for a company to release code under an open source license, but at the same time to be lousy members of the open source community. I've already got some of the measuring sticks in mind. Has anyone done work on this topic before? Would you like to share with me what measures you use to gauge the "worthiness" of a company involved in open source development? I think this will become a more important subject as open source software development becomes more mainstream and more companies become involved. I think it will also be important to separate the corporate leeches from those that really give back to the open source community. Perhaps a standard rating system will evolve from the article, if one does not exist already. Thanks for your thoughts. The Sunburned Surveyor _______________________________________________ Geowanking mailing list [email protected] http://lists.burri.to/mailman/listinfo/geowanking
