Hello all, With the addition of Arcisphere LLC to the list of companies providing support for Apache Guacamole [1], I am beginning to think that the list should be split between "Companies that employ Apache Guacamole committers" and "Other companies" (see attached mockup), like what Apache Cassandra does in their list of support providers [2].
BUT: I am concerned that doing so would be a conflict of interest, or would at least be received by the community as a conflict of interest. Glyptodon was historically the company driving Guacamole development, and currently employs 2 of the 3 committers on the project (myself included). As the addition of a new committer requires a lazy-consensus VOTE, it's clear that the individuals deciding whether another company joins the list would be tied to the only company in that list. However, I can also see that: 1) If the project operates correctly at all, committers are INDIVIDUALS and their selection is based purely on merit. Employer/company should not enter into the decision. Doing otherwise would be self-defeating. Such a project could not be or hope to become an Apache project. 2) Those looking for commercial support benefit from being able to see how the providers of that support give back to the development community surrounding Apache Guacamole. 3) The community at large benefits from transparency. 4) Ordering the list to favor companies that employ committers provides an incentive for other companies to encourage their employees to contribute to the project (or to hire committers). As I am directly connected to Glyptodon, I cannot decide this. Same thing goes for James. I am interested in how everyone else feels, in particular our other committer (Hello, Frode) and the mentors. If people think this is a good idea, I will move forward with a pull request. If not, I will not. Let the discussion commence! - Mike [1] http://guacamole.incubator.apache.org/support/#commercial-support [2] https://wiki.apache.org/cassandra/ThirdPartySupport
