Keith M Wesolowski wrote: > 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.
If the latter is true, I think those people would be incorrect. > 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. No, it isn't. I also don't think it's particularly useful, to anyone. > 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. Then these people should be talking to those that committed Sun to this, which as above, is fairly high up, I suspect. The fact that various middle managers, or whomever, don't get it is their problem, not ours. > 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. And would provide substantial bad press for Sun, obviously. It's not exactly protectionist to bring that upon yourselves. > 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. I think that depends on how much support this really has within Sun. > Nor have I seen any great push within the community for > greater independence from Sun. It's there, I've seen it from pretty much everyone who's thus-far contributed and isn't a Sun employee, in fact. I think several may have since given up thinking this can be fixed, but that however is a different thing. > 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. That I disagree with, a commitment was made and it should be honoured. -- Rich
