Hi everyone, We did not discuss yet about how universities, schools and companies (for-profit ones especially) may interact/participate in the project.
So here is a first attempt to draft this important part of the project. I will put bluntly for discussion how I (and a few others) consider this, up to your consideration and comments. And let's build/deconstruct that. On the one side, the Mageia project is a place where many people from different cultures and skills sets meet and work together. Some are self-taught, some got diplomas; some are amateurs, some are professionals; all benefit from others' personalities. This melting-pot (online and hopefully offline too at some point), if carefully managed, is an extraordinary great place for professionals and for non-pro (students, retired, amateurs) to learn from each other and to demonstrate their ability both in collaborative work and in their own specific field of expertise (be it academic or not; be it software development, project management, translation, documentation, QA, communication, marketing, legal, hardware design, UX, design, etc.). On the other side, great technology, tools and practices are made available and demonstrated through this very project. So it just makes perfect sense that professionals participating to Mageia do it not only in their spare time, but as part of their actual employment; provided, of course, the employer sees and understands the opportunity, both as an employer and as a potential user/developer/integrator of these pieces of technology and experience. It's not about the Mageia project providing companies or schools with commercial services or some specific access to tools and products of the project. It's about companies or schools contributing actively to a project they benefit from: * contributing through the means they consider most appropriate: people, resources, money, visibility; * benefiting from the technology, the knowledge, the pool of great people demonstrating their ability to build something in a collaborative, constructive effort and available to provide, if needed, a specific service for a specific need. I want to stress this out again because that is crucial. That will not affect the project governance in any way: project direction and decisions rely on contributors duly elected by their peers at each level: team, council, board. Donating money to the project does not entitle to any specific right that would disrupt this governance model. Here is how it could be put, in other words: You, as a person, as a group, as a company, as a university, are very welcome to contribute to the project if you believe in it, not only in the technology, but in the governance, in the vision and in the people that make it happen. The best way to influence significantly the project is to invest your people into it and have them become great contributors. As a result, Mageia-produced tools and products are free software (that is, collectively owned and built technology and knowledge) and they are (going to be) designed and built to be used. By you, or anyone that finds value in this technology and in the fact that it can understand it, tweak it to one's needs, improve it, learn from it. So if it fits your needs, just use it, take it, teach it, tweak it, plug it, play it, burn it... wooops ;-) You get the idea. Find a real problem that screams for a different solution, nail this solution down, use the best tools at hand and implement it. This is for the reasoning. Next could be: * what types of companies would join in such a fashion and for what use? (support, integration, custom development, other?) * which universities, for what use? * why would Mageia need to even care about this? * how (and why) would the Mageia project integrate this by taking steps facilitating this (and preventing mixes between what is genuinely produced by Mageia and what is derivated from it)? * how can Mageia keep the focus on its own roadmap (to stress out that the governance is in the hands of the Council and the Board, and only them; and why investing in the people contributing to the project is key) Cheers, Romain
