Hi Landon, With respect, I think that is a bad idea. Framing this is a matter of judging various types of citizenship creates an additional obstacle for companies to dodge when attempting to go FOSS.
I think it is very possible for a company to release code under an open
source license, but at the same time to be lousy >members of the open source community. You initially used the word citizenship, and here moved to 'members of the open source community,' and decided that some members of the community are 'lousy.' This framing bothers me. Code is good. Releasing code is good. Anything beyond that is gravy... Regards, Rich On 4/20/07, Landon Blake <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I've been thinking about writing a short article on the involvement of corporations in the open source world. Specifically, I want to describe a system or set of rules for measuring the quality of a company's involvement in an open source community. In other words, I want to provide some measuring sticks that can help developers and managers answer the question "What type of citizen is this company in the open source community?". I think these guidelines can help developers and users that want to evaluate the merit of companies that claim to follow the open source or FOSS idealogy. I think it is very possible for a company to release code under an open source license, but at the same time to be lousy members of the open source community. I've already got some of the measuring sticks in mind. Has anyone done work on this topic before? Would you like to share with me what measures you use to gauge the "worthiness" of a company involved in open source development? I think this will become a more important subject as open source software development becomes more mainstream and more companies become involved. I think it will also be important to separate the corporate leeches from those that really give back to the open source community. Perhaps a standard rating system will evolve from the article, if one does not exist already. Thanks for your thoughts. The Sunburned Surveyor *Warning: *Information provided via electronic media is not guaranteed against defects including translation and transmission errors. If the reader is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this information in error, please notify the sender immediately. _______________________________________________ Geowanking mailing list [email protected] http://lists.burri.to/mailman/listinfo/geowanking
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