Louis habla sobre una fundacion de OpenDocument... Traductores?
http://council.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=discuss&msgNo=675 Hi, This coming Friday, there will be a meeting hosted by IBM and Sun to discuss the promotion of the OpenDocument format. Many big corporations are invited. I, along with Charles Schulz, was invited to represent the non-Sun OOo. Charles has chosen not to attend. I would like to represent the Community Council at this meeting. My apologies for the late notice. I've previously included most of the community council members in private discussions but not the entire CC and not formally. Let's say this meeting accomplishes something. Here are some possibilities: * Plan A. The creation of an OpenDocument foundation to support development of the OpenDocument format (odf). The point would be to have, I would guess, developers who could work on the format. There are numerous challenges that need to be met, such as accessibility, CJK improvement, and so on. OOo would not be specifically included in this foundation but would obviously benefit to the degree it implements the odf. So would any other similar application. This scenario has some appeal. OOo is not directly involved, as the file format is tangential to the application, however important it is to users. * Plan B. Like above, but with OOo included. That is, the OpenDocument foundation would have a place for specific OOo development. How this would work is anybody's guess but it could provide an impartial space for the allocation of resources. I find this scenario unpersuasive. Initially, I liked it, as it seemingly resolved the problem of IBM vs Sun (vs any other competitor) but only superficially. I would suggest that if this scenario is argued for that OOo say no, that the community council is not interested. * Plan C. The creation of an OpenDocument foundation *and* the creation of--or at least more meaningful discussions on--the creation of a foundation specific to OOo development. I doubt that any OOo foundation will be created at this meeting. However, there will be people there with real power and I think it makes sense to present plans. I rather like this scenario because it is cleaner. The drawback is of course the usual one: forming the OOo foundation--and figuring out if it is really needed, what problems it solves, what problems it creates. So, here is a possible solution that I think would help. Versions of this solution have been discussed by numerous stakeholders. I would like to present it (or at least discuss it with) the gathered representatives. * An OOo Foundation be created and funded by a set of initial founders including the usual big names plus others. These comprise the initial board; subsequent elections and membership structured like Apache, with the board including corporate reps as well as independent representatives of the community. In short, not unlike our present community council. The point is to ensure community representation. * The foundation would have several objective, the most obvious of which would be to promote and coordinate development of OOo. it would do this however not by holding IP to OOo (status quo on that) but by holding IP to *extensions* and *add ons* and other similar things. I doubt, that is, that Sun is about to donate its IP in OOo any time soon. What can be done, however, is to provide a neutral space for add ons to OOo. In effect, the foundation would be a larger version of the incubator project proposed by Laurent and use a lot of the same structure he has proposed. It would also, however, do marketing. * How it would work is fairly simple. It would hold code following the current model: entities would use a JCA to donate code to the impartial foundation. License would be LGPL, but as it would be under the JCA, the entity could of course do whatever they like with add ons, etc., even after contribution to the Foundation. Any entity-- individual, corporation, what have you--would form a project and be responsible for maintaining the relevant code. The binaries and source of each add-on or extension would be available to endusers and any other person. Because these extensions and add ons are not being automatically included in binary releases of OOo but are *optional*, and because the project leads are responsible for qualifying them, actual management of the code is much simplified. The point of this foundation would be to centralise such and thus make it easier to develop and use such code. Eventually, as has been speculated by some, the foundation could prove an attractive model for holding OOo's greater source. The appeal of a model like this, again as has been pointed out by others, is that it addresses an immediate needs (gives a space for government funding and for other money to be accepted) and opens some processes up while not affecting current funding for and development of OOo. As to cost: The bare minimum would be hosting the webspace, cvs (or SVN), management staff, and marketing. I'd expect a lot of the funds needed to be taken in by donations, and others by membership fees (which should be sliding). Arguably,the site itself could even be, eventually, the logical locale for binary downloads of OOo, though I envision a scenario in which the user can choose, a la Linspire model, packages he or she wants. And as to why not just use the present domain for work like this....This would provide a space that would give more of what we want by combining the need for a nonprofit able to accept monetary donations with a space for neutral acceptance of code contributions. Again, sorry for the lateness of the proposal, but please let me know your thoughts on these issues. thanks louis -- Alexandro Colorado CoLeader of OpenOffice.org ES http://es.openoffice.org --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
