Hello Clark, I see your point here, and I understand your problem. But I do not share your opinion, especially when it comes to its conclusion. (branching)
Zope Corp. is not living in a dream world: > On the one hand ZC is this munificent benefactor of > Zope. > > On the other hand ZC is this poor cash strapped little > company that can't afford to take any interest in Zope > unless they have an immediate incentive. > > YOU CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS DUDE. I AM SORRY BUT THIS > IS JUST NOT POSSIBLE. I have zope.org, and I have zope.com It's the same company, isn't it? It's the same people on the same payroll, isn't it? If I go to zope.com, I know I will definitely spend money, probably a lot of money. If I go to zope.org, I know I'm not going to spend a single dime. Guess where you'll find me? Now guess where'll find others. This separation makes sense, and imho it should have been done earlier! Now that it's late, Zope Corp has to work on its image, which would have been easier a year ago. (I think the new CEO's "first approach" towards the developers community was pretty "unfruitful". Should I put a smiley here? Naaaa... He has learned quickly, I even forgot his name (whoops, who said that?)) I don't think ZC is a poor cash strapped little company, though it is still quite small. But in fact, this is totally irrelevant: No investor (see last line of this mail) will throw money out the window, whether it's a lot or a little. He wants it back x20, better in 2 or 3 three years than in 5 or 6. And I don't see why Zope Corp should pay "high-end" full-time developers to "keep the fraggles entertained" (yeah I'm one of the fraggles, sometimes). I do appreciate that they snip off some of their weekly time, and support the community(which has helped Zope Corp a lot in the past imho). I can not and will not pay them for this and only this, and I don't see how you get the idea that ZC can. > > If ZC is the benefactor of zope, why can't they > develop a plan that is independent of day to day money > making? Open-Sourcing was a nice move, since (among a lot of other things) it opens up business opportunities for other people. Still, it costs a lot of money to maintain an Open-Source project of this size. Zope is the BASIS of ZC's consulting and services work, so how could you possibly make this independent from each other? You can listen to Paul Everitts thoughts on this if you take a look at the interview he had with O'Reilly Network (quite a while ago). Or maybe just wait a moment... > > If ZC is this little company that does not have the > resources to provide true leadership, then why does > Zope need them? I see true leadership, but I also see _mutual_ benefits. I also believe that Zope would have never come that far if DC/ZC hadn't backed it. What it seems to me that you are trying to do here is take something away you never been responsible of in the first place. If there was no ZC/DC, there wouldn't have been a Zope, and this is the truth that you deny. I respect ZC for the responsibility they are taking more than I envy anyone of copyrights. The ZPL has all you can ask for. Set up a website and promote it as the "alternative" development site for Zope and upcoming versions of Zope. Good luck! With "after hour" developers alone you will wallow in it for years. How many people would feel attracted, which people, and why? What would developers get on this site? What would be the "added value" of the site? Copies of documents that people have written that had been paid by a company (ZC)? And who will oversee the development cycle as a whole? Me? You? When? After "work"? So if you take the whole day for this, who's gonna pay for your costs of living? Oh, an investor. What should he invest in? Why? How do you plan to get his money back (x20)? Ohhhhhh..... You want to do this WHILE you're at the other job.... :-) ZC is a company "dude", and a company has a business plan. That plan either fits yours or it doesn't. Of course they're not playing with marbles. ZOPE.ORG IS NOT ZC'S "HOBBY" (but it looks like it's yours) Customer to development company: - "So what's the technical platform for this project?" - "Zope" - "Zope, uhu... Whose Software is that? Will this thing exist as long as our project exists? Where will we get support?" - Ah well... The Software belongs to "zope.org", actually no one specific. It's open source, developed and maintained by people who find it a "nice" piece of software, and work on it after finishing their real job during the day. Support? Well there are a couple of email addresses on that site, I think they answer pretty quickly... Uh-huh.. Duuhhh... I support ZC's approach. Most def. btw, Check the "corporate guide for business decisions" (or something like that) on zope.org to see some of the benefits we as developers have from a corporate approach. > ... > > Zope would not have trouble finding corporate > sponsors even from fortune 500 companies like IBM or > HP. You know about the recent investment that has been made, don't you? Yours, Danny P.S.: Sorry for the bad structure. I was adding and adding, and I'm not very satisfied with the current form. Will send it now anyway, cos: I gotta go to work. Using Zope of course. _______________________________________________ Zope-Dev maillist - [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev ** No cross posts or HTML encoding! ** (Related lists - http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-announce http://lists.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope )