On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 8:47 AM, Stephen Lau <stevel at opensolaris.org> wrote:
> I appreciate the efforts that you, Roy, and the rest of the pilot
> program put into trying to steer Sun towards building a truly open
> source community - but I'm curious to know what you would have done if
> you were an OGB member in this case (the specific case of Sun asserting
> its rights as a trademark owner).
>From the outset, I would have had an honest discussion on ogb-discuss@
laying out the alternatives and deciding what to do. It may have been
that those discussions have happened off-list or con-calls, but I
haven't seen them. So, to me as an outsider, the appearance is of
accepting the action without question.
> I fully agree that the OGB hasn't done things right in other situations,
> but from where I stand, the OGB is pretty much powerless in this
> specific case.
The fundamental problem, as I see it, is that the policy is inverted.
OpenSolaris never got its act together to permit a naming scheme
blessing releases with a name - so Sun unilaterally instituted their
own policies. So, what I'd recommend is trying to draft a policy that
gives Sun what they want ("Indiana, an OpenSolaris distribution" or
something) that doesn't do a disservice to SchilliX, Nexenta, etc.
They were all present long before Project Indiana, and it seems sad
that Sun can come along and take the name. If I were involved with
Nexenta or whatever and told from the beginning that the OpenSolaris
name was off limits and Sun comes along and takes it for their
project, that'd be a grace insult and I hope Sun management
understands that.
I do believe there's room to give everyone what they want, but the OGB
should demonstrate leadership and draft the policy so that Sun doesn't
get scared and create it by themselves in a very clumsy way. --
justin
