Justin Erenkrantz wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 8:47 AM, Stephen Lau <stevel at opensolaris.org>
> wrote:
>
>> I appreciate the efforts that you, Roy, and the rest of the pilot
>> program put into trying to steer Sun towards building a truly open
>> source community - but I'm curious to know what you would have done if
>> you were an OGB member in this case (the specific case of Sun asserting
>> its rights as a trademark owner).
>>
>
> >From the outset, I would have had an honest discussion on ogb-discuss@
> laying out the alternatives and deciding what to do. It may have been
> that those discussions have happened off-list or con-calls, but I
> haven't seen them. So, to me as an outsider, the appearance is of
> accepting the action without question.
>
>
>> I fully agree that the OGB hasn't done things right in other situations,
>> but from where I stand, the OGB is pretty much powerless in this
>> specific case.
>>
>
> The fundamental problem, as I see it, is that the policy is inverted.
> OpenSolaris never got its act together to permit a naming scheme
> blessing releases with a name - so Sun unilaterally instituted their
> own policies. So, what I'd recommend is trying to draft a policy that
> gives Sun what they want ("Indiana, an OpenSolaris distribution" or
> something) that doesn't do a disservice to SchilliX, Nexenta, etc.
> They were all present long before Project Indiana, and it seems sad
> that Sun can come along and take the name. If I were involved with
> Nexenta or whatever and told from the beginning that the OpenSolaris
> name was off limits and Sun comes along and takes it for their
> project, that'd be a grace insult and I hope Sun management
> understands that.
>
> I do believe there's room to give everyone what they want, but the OGB
> should demonstrate leadership and draft the policy so that Sun doesn't
> get scared and create it by themselves in a very clumsy way. --
> justin
>
Yeah, the discussions happened off-list and on the OGB meeting con-calls
(which, btw, are open to the public - we had a number of community
members dial in). For what it's worth, and I know that after-the-fact,
it's probably not worth much - but in case you want to know.... OGB
members brought up alternatives, including the "Indiana, an OpenSolaris
Distribution", but Sun is very much set on remodeling the community
around a MySQL model and declaring Indiana the "one true OpenSolaris".
cheers,
steve
--
stephen lau | stevel at opensolaris.org | www.whacked.net
