On Wed, Jun 06, 2007 at 11:30:35AM -0500, Nicolas Williams wrote: > The decision to open Solaris came from the top, from Sun's CEO. Ergo > Sun management adopted an openness policy. Perhaps all the consequences > haven't been worked out and perhaps Sun management may change its view > on openness, but for now the dictum we're working on is that we're > trying to build an open community around OpenSolaris -- the dictum is > openness.
Yes. And this, really, is the core of the problem. Sun committed very publicly to supporting a wholly open, community-driven development model for OpenSolaris. It's possible, even likely, that its management did not, and still does not, understand the full implications of that commitment. It's also possible that a large fraction, or even a majority, of OpenSolaris Members believe they would be personally harmed by such a state of affairs. There are a variety of viable and beneficial engagement models a vendor can implement with its customers and a community of users, developers, and engineers working with its newly-open-source technologies. These models offer varying degrees of transparency and participation, and a model that makes sense for one product or technology family might not make sense for another. It's entirely possible that what Sun really meant for OpenSolaris was a Solaris-first transparent development model, in which Sun would lead and generally control development but often though not always make both the documentation and the code available to the public in real-time, perhaps with some mechanism for feedback and even limited contribution. Such a model would be a logical extension and continuation of the Platinum Beta program. It would provide plenty of value to Sun and to its Solaris customers, and even some value to researchers, students, and curious engineers of all stripes, and to vendors or individuals wishing to incorporate pieces of the technology into their own works under the terms of the various open licenses. But that model is not, by any stretch of imagination or wordplay, wholly open or community-driven. As you note, past statements and acts have strongly indicated that Sun expects us to establish and sustain the latter, but the actual arguments we're seeing here imply pretty strongly that Sun, or at least a subset of people attempting to identify and protect its perceived interests, does not actually believe that model to be desirable or appropriate. The Charter can be amended if both Sun and the OGB agree. Frankly, I'd be open to considering a modification that more honestly reflects Sun's actual intentions for this community, and establishes more realistic expectations. Certainly a substantial downward revision in the openness of Sun's engagement model with the OpenSolaris community would weaken the non-Sun elements of our community and reduce the attractiveness of this community to newcomers not already familiar and comfortable with Sun and Solaris. It may even result in the abolition of the OGB and abrogation of the Constitution. Nevertheless, with the copyrights still in Sun's hands, limited provision for non-Sun contributors to make much-needed infrastructure improvements, and no likely end in sight for Sun's overwhelming dominance of the contributor talent pool, it's foolish to expect that we will succeed in forcing Sun to do something it does not wish to do. Nor have I seen any great push within the community for greater independence from Sun. Under the circumstances, I believe we may be better served by negotiating a different engagement model with Sun and saving our energy for more realistic goals than the one we're supposedly trying to achieve today. -- Keith M Wesolowski "Sir, we're surrounded!" FishWorks "Excellent; we can attack in any direction!"
