Joerg Schilling wrote:
> Ian Collins <ian at ianshome.com> wrote:
>
>
>> That's where OpenSolaris differs form a number of well known open source
>> projects where the the project came before the companies and their paid
>> developers. I'm not aware of any other large open source project (with
>> the possible exception of Netscape/Mozilla) where this has happened, so
>> we are navigating difficult and uncharted waters.
>>
>> As Sun represents the vast majority of the community and bears an even
>> bigger majority of the financial burden, they have the right as well as
>> the might to steer the project to benefit their commercial
>>
>
> See OpenOffice...
>
> But please note: If Sun has no interest in creating a community outside Sun,
> Sun may continue to throw source over the fence in a well known frequency.
> If Sun however likes to extend to the existing community _outside_ Sun, Sun
> would need to become ore open and allow the external community to gain
> influence.
>
There is already a lot of that going on. There is a new PSARC intern.
You've been invited to participate as a PSARC intern as well. There are
folks working on the tools to open them up. Many groups have made
source code available well before integration, and have even invited
external participation up to and including code submissions.
It is highly disingenuous to suggest that Sun is merely throwing code
over the wall. Yes, some decisions are made, and sometimes a minority
member will get overruled. I believe the one major concern where you
had, the decision would have been the same either way -- the fact that
you didn't attend the meeting where that decision was made does not mean
that you (as a non-Sun person) were not able to. (In fact, you could
have easily attended, had you wanted to.)
> Note that you get nothing really for free and influence is how you "pay"
> free software development.
>
Influence != control.
The community has numerous opportunities to influence and participate.
And while Sun needs to continue to make this more open. But the
community has failed to capitalize on all the opportunities that are
already available (such as more participation on ARC by non-Sun employees.)
-- Garrett
