Hi
On 2005-11-09, at 15:37 , Bernhard Dippold wrote:
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?
Sure. I raised, at a BoF, the question of a Foundation and asked
that it be justified. I can't recall the exact wording but was
something like, What problems does an independent Foundation solve?
The discussion was very productive, and the resolution was both a
fairly long list of 16 or so items that need resolution, if not by a
Foundation than by other means, and the sense that a Foundation makes
sense under certain circumstances. It was agreed, if not by all then
certainly by a lot of stakeholders, that Foundation is not a panacea
and that we should first clean up the process and governance issues
(in fact and perception) OOo has. Sun agreed in principle that if the
current set up prevented entities from contributing, then a
Foundation makes sense. Such a Foundation would be more than a
marketing foundation (which would be like Team OpenOffice.org e.V.
and a holder of marketing funds) and hold code. A transfer of IP
would thus be required. But it was *not* consensual that a
Foundation would now follow. Novell, for instance, was opposed to
the idea. And it makes sense it should be: the current set up
benefits Novell.
As I was a) the person who enabled this discussion and b) argued for
a Foundation as a vehicle for outside contributions that would
otherwise not be forthcoming, as from governments, for instance, I'm
pretty much on record for supporting and indeed moving the idea of a
Foundation. For the last several years, too, I've been fairly
tirelessly going to various corporations and when possible government
agencies investigating support for an independent Foundation. My
reason for supporting an independent Foundation is simple: I think
that the OOo community of contributors and endusers is not
efficiently served by the current set up. I think too that we could
get more contributions from agencies, such as governments, or even
companies such as IBM (laugh), who may not otherwise contribute.
Further, I believe that the perception that Sun controls everything,
and that OOo is but a corporate front masquerading as an open-source
project, could be dispelled with an independent Foundation. I think a
lot of us believe these things.
I think it should be clear then that I am not betraying the message
from Koper. Rather, this is what has happened: There seems to be a
drop in Sun's enthusiasm for the idea. This puts us back to a version
of square one. Not quite, for there is still interest in many camps
in OOo and its promise, as a project and product. There is also the
time pressure from Microsoft and others.
Hence my suggestion for the addon. Mind, it is a *suggestion*, not a
fiat or policy. But I feel that we need some vehicle for accepting
contributions from others that we do not have now. Will it weaken the
argument for a Foundation? Will it sap the strength of the project?
Actually, I do not think so, else I would not have proposed it.
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).
I sort of agree, but wonder what you mean then by "community"? One
point I've been thinking is that the overall architecture of this
would be precisely that it would be "within" the OOo overall
structure. An analogue would be java.net, which hosts lots of java
projects. OOo could thus "include," in a formal and even logical way,
the foundation. But contributors would not sign copyright, joint or
not, to Sun. They'd either not have to or sign it to the independent
foundation.
Again, this is a proposal.
Best
Louis
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