On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 4:30 PM, Jim Grisanzio <jimgris at sun.com> wrote: > Martin Bochnig wrote: >> >> But I do not fully understand what exactly you mean with the rest: >> > > I just don`t see this in a political context that needs complex legislation.
But aren't you a politician by profession? Is this a trick? > Nor do I feel it`s particularly productive to always be trying to influence > Sun`s corporate decisions in this or that direction. Nobody wants to influence Sun's corporate decisions, what we in fact are talking about, is how to influence the governance of the opensolaris.org community project. The dilemma seems to be, that the latter is not possible without the former. Because Sun runs opensolaris.org like a product-producing subdivision, where Bele-IndianaSchilli-niX (aka "OpenSolaris 20yy.mm") is the corporate end-product. > OpenSolaris is a development project, and it seems to me we ought to be > focused on development and the things that support development and not get > distracted by politics. Sun started all this by opening a bunch of code, and > the company asked the engineers and mangers involved to open some > infrastructure and processes and work in the open so we could involve others > and build a community. From here on in it`s our job to do just that -- to > build a community. I happen to believe that given the history and > characteristics of this project that we should try a lightweight governance > that encourages flexibility and can grow over time if needed because the > most important community building activity is development itself. That`s my > view. And that`s what I base all of my decisions on. > > Jim In the current manner of running the project Sun will always be required to pay for everything (with a few rather small and rare exceptions). Because you will not be able to win over most of the bold names of FOSS unless you share all (not just some) governance power with them. Do you recall the Xorg vs. XFree86 divorce in 2004? To some folks (even seemingly small) changes to a license or a constitution do matter. If Sun expects a real wave of highly skilled, sophisticated and talented developers to join the project and to generate an unseen/unimaginable blast of self-dynamics, then Sun has to give away ___all___ exclusive control over the project. Although it is actually already to late for it. Sun lost another chance there. I won't repeat the list of engineers who already quit the project, but you all are aware of it. To write IPS (a limited conary-workalike, as everybody who takes the time instantly realizes) from scratch (instead of taking the existing conary from rPath) was another foolish decision. The price: * 2 years of work which Sun needed to pay for (many employees) * 2 years of delay and stagnation * conary [T.M.] was already well-known and respected throughout the FOSS scene, IPS wasn't and certainly never will be. Behind conary there is an entire industry of Linux-magazines who are writing reviews (and therefore free Ad's) for it. With IPS Sun even has to pay for that part. Why I am telling Sun all this? Good question, because Sun doesn't appreciate it (or even reward it), if somebody tries to help them (e.g. with trying to change their views in their own best interest). There are quite a few people out there which you already lost, and who could confirm what I said from experience. I'm not sure if they are still subscribed to ogb-discuss, because they gave up long ago. To stay in line with the official Sun-line, that's what brings somebody reward (and not more). Sun is going to do what Sun is going to do. Much luck, Sun. Martin
