I'm attempting to summarise this thread and thus I'm top-posting on the orginal opening thread.
I will send the below text to the board for consideration. I'll feedback here after the next board meeting (18th) or sooner if possible. Dear Board, The Apache Open Office project needs to stabilise the hosting of their extensions.openoffice.org service. The code needs updating and bandwidth requirements need to be addressed. Gav, on behalf of the infra team, has offered to move the server to ASF hardware and stabilise the code. Longer term Gav indicated that his desire was to turn the service into a meta-data hosting service whereby extensions could be discovered via extensions.openoffice.,org but hosted in third party locations. This plan requires the hosting non-apache software (including closed source) on ASF hardware. This was approved by the board with responsibility for resolving the IP issues being delegated to the IPMC (http://s.apache.org/fO - members only link). In the meantime Sourceforge have offered to help, initially through an approach to Rob Weir of the AOO project and then through myself. I took this proposal (via infra@ who requested the PPMC bring it to the boards attention) to the AOO dev project for discussion. The thread can be found at http://s.apache.org/sz6 (public) - the first post in that thread includes the proposal from Jeff Drobnick (President and CEO of Geeknet media, it also includes a number of clarifications from Roberto Gallopini of Geeknet. I've tried to summarise for you here. After a long discussion the AOO podling has reached a consensus that the best way forward would be to accept the proposal from Sourceforge as a short term solution whilst working towards the meta-data site for the long term. The PPMC feels that moving the service to a non-ASF host now will minimise disruption for extensions developers and end-users who are unwilling or unable to conform to ASF policy in the long term. Similarly the PPMC feels there is a sufficiently large number of edge cases to make changes in policy more complex than is necessary since it is the PPMCs desire to provide an "approved" list of extensions which are expected to conform to existing ASF IP policies, whilst also enabling third parties to host their own extensions sites that users can choose to access via a meta-data service. We have assurances from SF that they are not interested in locking the AOO project to their hosted services. Members of the AOO PPMC will have shell access to the system and no attempt will be made by SF to own any of the IP involved. SF reserve the right to serve advertising on the downloads site (and possibly on the extensions site, this needs to be clarified). Downloads would be served from the existing SF mirror network. It is possible for AOO to point to an intermediate page giving users the option of visiting other extensions sites if required. That is extensions.openoffice.org could point to an ASF hosted web page listing multiple third party sites, one of which would be the SF hosted service. Consequently, if necessary it is possible for the PPMC to move hosting to a SF but not to point extensions.openoffice.org there. It is hoped that later releases of AOO will include the ability to search for extensions via a meta-data service managed by the AOO project. At this point extensions.openoffice.org would return to ASF hardware. It is expected that the SF hosted extensions repository will continue to exist and will be one of the first repositories from which users will be able to download non-ASF extensions. This proposal raises a few interesting policy questions. Therefore I would like to ask for guidance on how best to help the AOO project realise this objective. A few questions that come to mind are: Will it be necessary to draw up an MoU with SF? If so what are the key points the board would like to see covered? Will it be sufficient for the PPMC to work with SF to ensure the extensions site they provide respects the existing trademark policy? (bearing in mind that we will eventually be moving extensions.openoffice.org back to ASF hardware) Would the board prefer it if extensions.openoffice.org were to redirection to foo.sourceforge.net? (either automatically or via an information page) If so would this change the answer to the MoU question above? Will this simplify the AOO ability to address IP and fundraising concerns generated by non-ASF code and donations requests found on extensions.apache.org? Does the board have any concerns about advertising appearing on extensions.openoffice.org? Would this concern be mitigated by refusing permission to serve advertising from extensions.openoffice.org but allowing it on the download pages on an sf.net domain? If the board would like to discuss this at the next board meeting I will try and be on the call to answer an questions. In the meantime I'm here on this list. Ross On 3 January 2012 15:51, Ross Gardler <rgard...@opendirective.com> wrote: > As the community know Gav, in his role at infrastructure@ has > undertaken to stabilise and migrate the AOO extensions code to ASF > infrastructure. His work has been progressing and he remains committed > to completing this. > > However, as some know Sourceforge made an offer to help via our > private list. At the time they did not want to discuss this topic in > public for a number of reasons. I've had a couple of chats with > Roberto Gallopini and Jeff Drobick in order to help them understand > why the ASF prefers to host all services for its projects. In response > SF have tailored their offer of support. > > I relayed the outline of our conversations to the infrastructure team > who have asked me to have the AOO project provide some feedback, via a > board report, on what problems the AOO project forsee for the > extensions site and what options are available, if possible a > recommendation for an optimal solution should also be made. Note that > we can submit something out of cycle if we want, the next full report > is not due till March. > > The reason infra@ have escalated to board@ is probably that we need to > figure out a long term solution for the AOO project and that solution > is heavily influenced by ASF policy. Any solution that we are > currently considering will have an impact on the AOO extensions site > and/or on ASF policy. > > The current situation, as I understand it, is that the board have > given permission for the extensions site to be managed by infra during > incubation. The problem of distributing content under licences other > than Apache is not seen to be a problem during the incubation process. > Beyond incubation the board has delegated responsibility to the > Incubator PMC. I don't believe that particular discussion has been > started yet. > > Gav tells us that he has been thinking about making the extensions > site an index site, thus allowing the extensions to be housed > elsewhere (apache-extras, sourceforge, google code, github, FooBar > corporation or wherever). This would neatly bypass the licence > problem. Open source extensions needing hosting could go to > apache-extras while commercially licensed extensions would need to > provide their own hosting. > > An alternative is to work with a third party willing to help. I've > copied below the text of a mail outlining the SF proposal. You will > note that they are keen to ensure that we don't get locked into the SF > services. Nevertheless, one of the reasons the ASF hosts its own > services is to avoid exposing us to unmanageable risk. > > I have no reason to believe SourceForge have anything other than good > intentions in making this offer. SF has been supporting open source > for a very long time. It is backed at the highest level (Jeff is > President and CEO) and I believe Roberto is known within the > OpenOffce.org community. However, many aspects of this will be outside > of the control of the AOO project, despite SFs real attempts to > mitigate our concerns relating to this. > > Please note that the timescales Jeff outlines are unrealistic given > that we need to seek board input before being able to ensure the AOO > project makes the right decision. SF want to move quickly, but I > don't think we need to be rushed into making a decision. > > Once you've digested and debated the offer from Sourceforge the > community needs to come up with a couple of paragraphs indicating a > desired route forwards and reasons for it. I will try and attend the > appropriate board meeting in order to answer any questions that arise. > > Please be imaginative in your planning for the future. The optimal > solution might be some combination of ASF and SF offerings. > > Note Roberto Gallopini has joined this list and is ready to make any > clarifications necessary. I've also made Gav aware of this post so > that he can answer any questions we have about what infra@ are able to > do. > > Thanks, > Ross > > --- COPIED PROPOSAL --- > > I'm glad we had a chance to talk last week - exciting times for Open > Office as the product and community transition into the ASF. > > For over a decade, SourceForge has been committed to advancing the > open source software community. We host over 300,000 projects and are > visited by over 40 MM users per month for free, secure, and fast > downloads of open source software. Trusted and reliable download > delivery is an important part of our service, with over 4 million > downloads per day and 2 PB from our mirror network each month. We are > committed to helping OSS projects scale and grow. > > Based on our discussions, we understand there are a few things you are > solving for as part of the Open Office Incubation effort: > Supporting a diverse licensing terms for Open Office extensions, that > may not all comply with the Apache OSS policy; > Stabilizing your Drupal OO Extensions site and ensuring high > availability and download bandwidth without cost > Expanding both the developer base who will move into working on the > Apache framework as well as adoption of the Open Office product and > extensions. > We think we can help and that there would be mutual benefit. To that > end, we propose the following for your consideration: > > 1.) Stabilize the your OO Extensions Drupal instance by moving the it > and all services to SourceForge. Our Site Operations team will do teh > work and oversee the operations for you as we do other services. To > your community the directory will look the same and extension and > template files will move to SourceForge's globally-distributed > download mirror network where we can ensure reliable, scalable > delivery. Drupal will be hosted on our project web service, serving > your existing domain via a VHOST. Standard infrastructure > (monitoring, backups, etc.) and service levels (99.9% availability > target) apply. > > These SourceForge services will be provided gratis, and without > lock-in -- you are open to change your mind later. We anticipate this > migration would involve a week of planning and preparation, followed > by a week of migration and pre/post-migration communications. We're > prepared to commence this work the next week if provided your approval > and support. > > 2.) Once stabilized, we will work with you on a timeline to evaluate > and execute a migration from Drupal 5 to Drupal 7. > > Allowing us to host the Extensions community will solve the license > challenges - or at least give you time to work through a longer term > solution. We would also be able to cross promote the software titles > to the development community as well - so perhaps expand not only your > user base but developers. > > Roberto (our Sr. Director of Business Development) has been involved > in the OpenOffice.org community for many years -- he will continue to > be your point-of-contact. If we secure the go-ahead this week, we > will start on Tuesday next week and expect to be complete by 1/15 with > step 1. I have asked our head of Site Ops to oversee the > implementation and he'll partner up with your technical folks to > ensure the hosting transition goes well. > > Our motivation here is quite simple, it is all part of our mission to > help Open Source Software initiatives succeed. To that end, > SourceForge and Geeknet Media are able to fund these services and make > them free to the community through advertising largely on the download > and directory pages. So there won't ever be a charge back to your > community and we are able to reinvest in R&D on our developer tools as > well. > > We look forward to hearing back from you this week if possible. Feel > free to forward this on to whomever you would like in terms of getting > to an aligned decision. > > I wish you a happy new year! > > -- > Thank you, > Jeff > > --- End of copied text --- > -- > Ross Gardler (@rgardler) > Programme Leader (Open Development) > OpenDirective http://opendirective.com -- Ross Gardler (@rgardler) Programme Leader (Open Development) OpenDirective http://opendirective.com
