On 01/11/2007, Garrett D'Amore <garrett at damore.org> wrote: > Shawn Walker wrote: > > > >> So, quite simply, I believe that there are only two ways forward: > >> > >> 1) Sun cedes complete control of the OpenSolaris mark to the community > >> (possibly establishing an actual non-profit to own/manage the mark) > >> > > > > I don't think they can cede complete control unless we have a > > non-profit and that's just not necessary. Instead, clearly defined > > control over the trademark that they bind themselves would be more > > appropriate. > > > > > > What I've stipulated is, I don't think that Sun can be counted on to > bind itself to a policy. Even if it is the intent of the folks making > the decisions *today* to do so, I would be unsurprised if marketing > conditions change where Sun wants to do something *else* that isn't > necessarily in line with whatever policy might be adopted. > > I'm of the opinion that a non-profit foundation looks increasingly > necessary. Without it, we exist entirely at the pleasure of Sun. I'm > not sure that this is a good idea, even though I don't think Sun has > anything but the community's best interests at heart.
We already exist entirely at the pleasure of Sun, in a sense; they pay for everything! If they decided to shut the domain off tomorrow and then enforce strict trademark usage, all we would be left with would be the codebase and a lot of disenchanted people. That would effectively bring everything to a halt; of that I am certain. However, if I really believed they were ever going to do that, I wouldn't have joined this community. > A separate non-profit might make it possible for other corporate > sponsors to participate in the project more fully. Imagine, for > example, if IBM decided they want to participate (imagine an IBM > sponsored S/390 or POWER port.) Right now there is not really a good > way for them to do so. Who pays for the non-profit though? Sun? That's my problem with a non-profit. The primary issues facing our community are not naming; are not trademark usage; and certainly aren't the lack of a non-profit foundation. The primary issues facing our community are primarily technical and logistical. Ask just about anyone (like me!!!) that has tried to integrate with a consolidation or has RTIs. -- Shawn Walker, Software and Systems Analyst http://binarycrusader.blogspot.com/ "We don't have enough parallel universes to allow all uses of all junction types--in the absence of quantum computing the combinatorics are not in our favor..." --Larry Wall
