Hi,

Thanks for the informative mail. It did go a long way in bettering my understanding 
with regards to The Apache Software Foundation.

However, based on your feedback, the following come to my mind:

>Firstly, the code you are considering releasing under an open-source
>licence is an add-on to a proprietory product. The ASF is unlikely to
>consider adopting that kind of project......................

1. Daffodil Replicator is not an add-on to Daffodil DB (our Java database). It is a 
standalone product developed in-house by Daffodil Software. Daffodil Replicator use 
the standard JDBC driver interface to interact with databases. It is not interacting 
with any Daffodil DB's internal API. 

2. With regards to your comment about the 'group of developers' and the fact that the 
'code you are considering releasing can only be used with a proprietary database', the 
following: 
Replicator can be used by the following databases - SQL-Server, Oracle, Daffodil DB. 
(Note: These three databases have been tested with Replicator. I don't see why 
Replicator cannot be used with ALL others. However, testing needs to be done on the 
same.) Also, we can commit 20 - 30 developers from our talent pool, who can contribute 
from Day 1. Moreover, our forum (http://www.daffodildb.com:8080/forum) can be a good 
place to build up a pool of contributors.

3. Regarding Cloudscape, we are not sure if (or not) it provides support of Triggers 
and Multiple statements procedure (like PL/SQL in Oracle). If it does, we can ensure 
compatibility. (We would need some testing to be done, but that's not an issue.) On 
the other hand, if support of the said features doesn't exist, we can create the same. 
However, this would need access to the Derby source code.

4. Regarding our paradigm and business-model, we can (at this point of time) say that 
the objective for going the 'open source' way is singular: To build a robust product 
and a robust brand, at the same time leveraging the advantages of Open Source.

Regards,
Ashish Srivastava
www.daffodildb.com

PS: Please mark a CC to me for reply of this mail (although I subscribed the mailing 
list but I am unable to receive some mails)

Subject: Making Daffodil Replicator an Open Source : Suggestion
From: Simon Kitching <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain
Date: Sat, 07 Aug 2004 13:10:17 +1200

On Sat, 2004-08-07 at 05:20, Nicola Ken Barozzi wrote:
> Ashish Srivastava wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > We are a product based company named Daffodil Software Ltd, based in
> > India. We have developed many good products using JAVA out of which our
> > two premium product Daffodil DB (an RDBMS) and Daffodil Replicator
> > (database utility software) is largely accepted by world software
> > community.
> > 
> > We are planning to make our Daffodil Replicator an open source project.
> > 
> > How can we make it with www.apache.org please let us know how we have to
> > proceed.
> > 
> > I visited at http://incubator.apache.org but unable to find the answer
> > how to proceed in order to make our product open source. 
> 
> I'm cross-posting to lists where there might be interest in helping you 
> out on this.
> 
> > www.daffodildb.com

Hi Ashish,

The following is just my personal opinion, as a member of the ASF
(Apache Software Foundation); I am not speaking on behalf of the ASF.

I think it is great that you are considering releasing some of your code
under an open-source licence. I am sure there are a number of people
that are willing to offer advice on the process of releasing your code
as open-source. And if you do this, you are certainly welcome to reuse
the Apache Public License legal document as the base for the license
terms you release your code under; the ASF and its legal advisors
deliberately designed the license in a way that makes it easy for
non-ASF-hosted projects to use.

However if you are suggesting that the code you release may be hosted
and maintained by the Apache Software Foundation, I personally think
this is unlikely to happen.

Firstly, the code you are considering releasing under an open-source
licence is an add-on to a proprietory product. The ASF is unlikely to
consider adopting that kind of project. This doesn't mean that making
the code open-source is a bad idea, it's just something that the ASF
usually avoids being involved with.

Secondly when the ASF adopts existing code, the provider of the code is
expected to show evidence that there is a group of developers willing to
continue maintenance and development of the code in the future. Apache
doesn't want to end up hosting lots of code with no associated
developers. Given that the code you are considering releasing can only
be used with a proprietory database which does not have a large market
share, I think this will be a difficult thing for the Daffodil
Replicator project to demonstrate.

If your replicator tool can actually replicate data for multiple
different brands of database then please let us know; that would make
the project much more interesting, and therefore more likely to obtain
an adequate pool of developers. In particular, if it could be used with
the IBM "CloudScape" product which has recently been offered by IBM and
accepted by the ASF (and to be renamed "Derby" I believe), there could
be significant interest. The result could well be an improved replicator
for both Derby and Daffodil - but only if the architecture of your
current code is not too tightly bound to the Daffodil database.

If you are interested in discussing this further, then please describe
what Daffodil Software expects to gain by outsourcing this software.
There are a number of different open-source licences available, and
which one is appropriate depends upon the business strategy of Daffodil.
The ASF always uses the apache license, which is a "BSD-like" license,
but there are many successful open-source projects that use a different
approach. You may wish to investigate MySQL and JBoss as alternative
business models.

As I am sure you are aware, the ASF is not the only way to make code
open-source. You can always host the source code and associated
development framework (newsgroups, email lists, etc) on your own site,
or use the SourceForge site. If you let us know a little more about the
business goals of Daffodil Software we may be able to offer better
advice.

Disclaimer: No responsibility is taken for any consequences of you or
your company acting on any statements made in this email.

Regards,

Simon

PS: Sorry for the wide cross-posting. Nicola's reply suggested this
topic may be of interest to all these groups..

PPS: Nicola, I hope Ashish is actually subscribed to one of the lists
receiving this email. If this is not the case, could you please forward
this email. Thanks.


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