Matthew Langham wrote: >I was going to refrain from commenting... > >Anyone who believes (or thinks) that an open source project can survive >without commercial support is far removed from "the real world". The number >of people working on open source project "just for the fun" or "to scratch >that itch" is IMO very small. In fact it is my opinion that any open source >project - without some form of integrated (!) commercial backing will fail >in the end. > >Before we (as a company) decided to get involved with Cocoon and the open >source arena we had a discussion with Stefano on exactly this subject. His >opinion (and this is something I think is sooo true) is that using open >source software commercially - without "giving back" will eventually lead to >you (as a company - or person) being shouted down in the community. > >Now there are various ways to give back to a project - as we discussed with >Stefano: > >* Contributing Patches and Bug Fixes >* Donating components that were previously part of a product >* Actively working on the project >* Taking over a role in the project >* Testing the software and publishing your findings >* Writing documentation >* Writing articles to get the project "noticed" >* Presenting at conferences to get the project "noticed" >* Writing books to help anyone who wants to use the software > >And probably many more > >Well - guess what - we as a company (and Carsten and myself in particular) >have done all that in the past 2 years. And we still do. Every day. > >And (thankfully) we are not alone. There are many great (commercially >orientated) people out there who are helping to move Cocoon forward. The >fact that the Apache licence allows this is one of the reasons Apache >projects are so successful and widely renowned. > >The more commercial support Cocoon receives - whether in projects, books, >products based on Cocoon - the more successful it will become. > >Matthew > >
I fully share this view. An important dimension that should be taken into account is time : if I wasn't allowed by my company to give some of my time to Cocoon, I would never have been able to contribute all that I have contributed. Yes, I also take on my spare time for Cocoon because I love it and it's fun, but my wife and children limit this time ;) And time is money. So many companies give money to Apache projects through people's time, and allowing commercial use of these projects is a way for Apache to pay back. This explains the high quality of all the stuff you can find here. My view on opensource is this one : many people, which can be business competitors in the "real" world, join forces to build something that none of them could have built alone. And everyone (including non-contributors) can take this and make money with it by adding value on top of it through products, consulting, books, training, etc. Sylvain -- Sylvain Wallez Anyware Technologies Apache Cocoon http://www.anyware-tech.com mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Please check that your question has not already been answered in the FAQ before posting. <http://xml.apache.org/cocoon/faqs.html> To unsubscribe, e-mail: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For additional commands, e-mail: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
