Am 30.08.11 22:30, schrieb Rob Weir:
(renaming the thread since it has drifted)
On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 3:49 PM, Raphael Bircher<r.birc...@gmx.ch> wrote:
Hi Rob
Am 30.08.11 20:52, schrieb Rob Weir:
On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 2:38 PM, Raphael Bircher<r.birc...@gmx.ch> wrote:
Hi Rob
So you want to split the community into a official apache and a
inofficial
extendet community? That will happend if you will fellow strictly the
apache
way. Then we will have the Development here and the rest outthere. If
this
is good or bad, I don't know. But if it's like that, we should start to
organize te inofficial Community.
Are there some aspects of the Apache Way that the OOo community does not
like?
* collaborative software development
* commercial-friendly standard license
* consistently high quality software
* respectful, honest, technical-based interaction
* faithful implementation of standards
* security as a mandatory feature [1]
I'd be interested in hearing why these aspects of the Apache Way are
unacceptable. Maybe it would help if you explained what you think are
the core beliefs of the OOo community and where they are in conflict
with the above.
Thanks for the good response, Raphael, this is useful to discuss.
Not the points above but the flowing
* That it's strange to organize Events under Apache
Of course Apache events will be organized by Apache, just like
LibreOffice events are organized by The Document Foundation. That
should not be very odd.
Also, there can be third-party events, not run by Apache. If these
events use the Apache name or project trademarks or logos then they
require coordination/approval with the Apache Conferences Committee:
http://www.apache.org/foundation/marks/events.html
I don't think this is a very severe constraint. There are a lot of
informal "barcamp" style events that could be organized by project
members. If we coordinate with the Conferences Committee I don't see
a problem here. Things ranging from hack fests, etc., are all
possible.
What will not be possible is for an independent group of volunteers to
organized an event in their country, and call it "Apache OpenOffice
Foo" and hold this event without coordinating and seeking the approval
from the Apache Conferences Committee. But if they do the
coordination, then I don't see a problem.
The Organization is only one problem. But Event need also a budget, even
they are free. And get money for Events from the ASF would be hard. And
don't beleve that a other NGO will sponsoring the event if they can't
presenting themself as sponsor.
* The Apache fundrising politic
That is harder. An independent group could obviously do fundraising
on its own, but I don't see how it could use the Apache brands for
this.
That's not the question. The point is that the ASF dosn't cover all our
needs. ASF covers
* The infrastructure for offizial stuff
* Travel assistence for same elected events (We don't know how many
dollars they will pay for OOo)
* Maybe, but only maybe same Events, but I'm sure not all.
I see no fundrising for
* Marchendising, Marketing Material usw.
* Direct sponsoring for Devs, eg. Students etc.
* The fact that Apache has no concept what to do with people outside
developing.
Could you be more specific? Marketing, event organizing, fundraising,
etc., are all things that can be done in Apache, but they are done at
the ASF level, not at the project level. Similarly, you don't see
anyone doing a fundraiser for LibreOffice Calc. It is all done at The
Document Foundation level.
Within the project there are ways for everyone else to participate:
programmers, testers, documentation authors, translators, user
support, UI design, web design, etc.
Sure it's possible, but ASF is not designed for it, and that make it
hard to do this under apache. Don't forget, you can doing not a load on
ASF level if you are not a Member or a PMC. And PMC and PPMC are not the
same. And for same People is also a Language barriere. There exist a
load of people with strong OOo knowage and a big marketing knowage but
with small english experiences. This people will never show up at
Apache, forget it! But this are the people wich are needed for Events etc
* The fact that only no permisive Lisence are alowed
This is certainly true for code and content that are part of a
release. Apache 2.0 license is a key part of how Apache works.
* The fact that we have to rewrite all the documentation including
translation cause Lisence Issues
There may be other options here. For example, when IBM donates the
Symphony code, we can also contribute the documentation and
translations. This is all original work from us, which we can give
under ALv2.
Do you ever take a look in our documentation? Do you know how big it is,
and wich quality level the documentation has? Do you realy think the IBM
documentation can cover this. I beleve that IBM make a good contribution
on coding Base. Don't forget, docomentation is one part of OOo that the
Community has a heigher contribution level as SUN and Oracle. Well you
can release your documentation under ALv2 but please don't be
disapointed if people continue to work on the old documentation instead
the one from IBM.
* The Fact that is nearly impossible to get a Native language List.
I think that is mainly a start up issue. We're trying to avoid
premature fragmentation by splitting into too many mailing lists too
early. We want to encourage discussions like this, which everyone
(hopefully) will read.
Forget this, only the d...@de.oo.o has more subscribers as the
ooo-dev@i.o.o. As I said. Many people will never show up there or don't
read the list realy cause language barrieres.
We'll get more mailing lists over time. But
part of getting the community to come together is to get us all in the
same virtual room (this mailing list) and debate these issues until we
are said what we need to say.,
It does not mean that we have a complete split. But same kind of activity
has simply no place unter apache, or are so hard to integrate that no one
will do it. So it's much better to do it outside, as to skip it or do
nothing.
There are examples of this already, like oooforums, odfauthors, etc.
I think these projects like these could be done under Apache as well.
There is nothing procedural, technical or legal that would prevent it.
A sign of a healthy open source projects is that it spawns
Yes, you can grow up a service without the OOo brand. but oooforums and
odfauthors are bad exemples for it. oooforums was strongly promoted on
the OOo website and odfauthors was founded because the unhappynes of the
tools provided by OOo. ODFAuthors make the official OOo documentation as
far as I know.
derivatives and other projects. Look at Linux. Look at OOo, with all
the versions and other projects it created. This has always happened
and always will happen. This is not a bad thing. But I think we
still want to ensure that the "core" work on what we consider to be an
AOOo "release" occur in the project, under ALv2, according to Apache
procedures, etc.
I'm not say, that it's a bad thing. So maybe a split of the Apache
Community and the extended community is a big chance. but it needs
collaboration with the two or more parties and a little bit planing. It
makes no sense to try to press all under apache. It brings apache stress
and makes us unhappy. So it's better to be honest, and evaluate what's
realy on the right place under Apache and for what we have to search for
a solution outside.
As always there are forces that tend to split projects apart:
1) Desire for autonomy
2) Technical differences
3) License disagreements
4) Personality conflicts
5) Disagreement on level of formality
6) Disagreement on pace of work
and so on.
And there are forces that tend to keep projects together:
1) Shared accomplishment
2) Shared infrastructure
3) Economies of scale
4) Critical mass of expertise
5) Personal identification with project
6) Established user base and network of after-market goods and services
and so on.
Every project, new or old, deals with opposing forces like this.
We're really no different than any other project. We need to be
honest about what the challenges are and face them.
Regards,
-Rob
Greetings Raphael
--
My private Homepage: http://www.raphaelbircher.ch/
