Hello Charles, all,
Charles-H.Schulz wrote:
[...]
Louis Suarez-Potts wrote:
[...] the point I was making
regarding you was that people talked about some ideas in Koper that were
highly different from the add-on foundation. And in this I thought you
didn't even give it a concern. That was the sense of my message.
Could you give more information about what was discussed at Koper?
I'd like to include as many important points as possible in my mail
to the de-project.
Did you want to start with the foundation Louis sees at the end of
the line - a foundation that could be IP holder for the entire OOo code?
and b) that an add-on foundation (a neutral space) would necessarily
write out an OOo foundatio and thus ignore the community. In fact, it
would arguably be the start of a community foundation. Is that clear?
It wouldn't necessarily, indeed, but it would weaken the OOo structure
to a point that I feel we would even be far better of without such a
foundation. To answer the needs for additional developments, local
structures can be used indeed.
In my eyes a central foundation should be founded *inside* the
community (if this is legally possible).
Of course there are developers not willing to give away their
contribution to Sun or to license it under an open license.
For them we could use a newly formed add-on foundation - but I'd
prefer forwarding them to the new incubator (or what the project
will be named) project. They will not be forced to sign JCA or
license their work under LGPL - at least that's what I think of this
project.
The one point I understand in Louis' argumentation is that there are
groups not willing to spend money to a community or foundation
dominated by a company - at least from their point of view.
So my effort would be to
- find a way to modify Sun's contribution from donating developer's
work to donating the code and sponsor developers explicitly
dedicated to OpenOffice.org coding.
-open Sun's developing process to include more developers from other
origins.
- establish a foundation that could keep the code and coordinate
*all* the developing efforts. This foundation could be sponsored by
different companies, governments and NGOs because it would not be
Sun specific anymore.
- people not interested in open licensed coding are - sorry for my
personal point of view - not our main goal. We need developers to
implement new or optimized features into the core code. Add-ons are
important in some cases, but not as important as improving the main
code.
[...]
I understand Louis, but let me re-state my statement; the add-on
foundation is unpopular and did not take into account *other proposals*.
You gave your reasons for this, but still they were falling short of the
point and did elude the question of a real OOo foundation so much that
it seemed people were simply not listened at.
Please tell me, what the other proposals have been.
[...]
Most of the issues regarding governance and process can be resolved
without a foundation: that was clear at Koper and clear now.
Yes, to a certain degree. We discussed that publicly and it was also
said that some issues could be helped by a *full-fledged* foundation.
A fully-fledged foundation inside or outside the community?
They have to do, substantially, with how contributions are dealt
with. But there is also the perception that Sun "controls" things and
that others are at its mercy. That perception, right or wrong, can
be helpfully dispelled with the creation of a neutral space where Sun
is no more than any other cadre of developers and not also the
copyright holder and primary contributor.
The only way to get Sun out of it's position as primary contributor
is to find many other developers independent from Sun. Copyright
holding can only be changed by convincing Sun to donate the code.
But therefore we don't need a "neutral space" outside the community
- we need a central place *inside* the community!
Yes, but the add-on foundation would have the primary result of
isolating the core development from the community process, and hence
give the perception that Sun *really does control everything*. Only an
independent entity sustaining the entire process could work. What can be
done though, is what the CC is currently doing by dicussing these
questions and by letting the community express itself. I'm sure we can
go on with the status quo while we work on an elaborated proposal and
try to organize a meeting (virtual/physical) with Sun to discuss these
questions.
What do you think?
That's the main point - talking to Sun! We do need to know, what
they want for the future and we have to tell them what we want!
Therefore it's the most important thing to find out, what the
community thinks about it!
Thank you, Louis and Sophie to raise this point!
... just my personal thoughts - I'm going to send my mail to the
DE-project tonight.
Best regards
Bernhard
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