That's got to be the best acceptance/campaign speech I've ever seen! Keep it up.
-- mark John Plocher wrote: > [Yes, Glynn, I hear the bell ringing :-) But, please read on... ] > > Ian Collins wrote: > > That's where OpenSolaris differs from a number of well known open source > > projects where the the project came before the companies and their paid > > developers. > > I think this touches on one of the key dissatisfiers we have. Various > community > members expect us to be going in one direction, yet the community doesn't seem > to be getting there, and sometimes it even seems to be going somewhere else > entirely. > > Sun started with Solaris, which was (ignoring its BSD roots) "completely > closed". It decided that it wanted to start the journey towards "being open", > and launched the OpenSolaris community. > > The people involved (both within Sun and outside) had visions of what the end > state would be, what effort it would take, as well as their own time lines and > agendas for getting there. Some of those visions were discussed, agreements > were forged, and everyone jumped on the wagon. > > What nobody realized (or maybe everyone realized, but didn't communicate > effectively) was that this transition wouldn't happen overnight, wouldn't move > instantaneously from "closed" to "open", it would have problems along the way, > and when it finally got there, it would have changed and evolved to the point > where it was something new and different from all those initial expectations. > > So, what /is/ the goal for OpenSolaris? Is it to be an Apache type community, > with absolutely no ties to any corporation? Or is it to be a MySQL or > OpenOffice, with most contributers being employed by Sun? Or maybe something > else. Is there only one goal? Can we all agree on what that goal is or > should > be? The only obvious thing here is that we won't all answer those questions > the same way. > > My own view is that we are engaged in a transition over time, starting with > pre-launch where everything was closed, stumbling and bumbling one step > forward > and two steps back thru a glass house stage (so don't throw rocks!), and as we > all gain confidence, we will mature as community and align our views around a > common set of goals, and end up somewhere in that initial vision of being > fully > open. Oh, and if it isn't obvious, we aren't there yet. > > Will Sun's influence and interest ever go away? No. Will we ever be > corporate- > agnostic like Apache? No. Do we want to be? Again, my opinion is no, we > don't. Will we go thru a glass house stage? Yes - isn't that where we are > today? Does that mean it is our ultimate goal? No, because there are > uncountable reasons to continue to engage more with the community. Will > everyone > be happy with the path we take or the place where we arrive? No, and that is > OK - as long as we strive for a culture where we can work together, even when > we > disagree on some things. Will there ever be hundreds of unconstrained non-Sun > ON committers? No, because that isn't how ON operates; there aren't even > hundreds of unconstrained *Sun* ON committers today! But, do we intend to > get > to the point where non-Sun-employees can be gatekeepers or CRT team members or > initiate integration putbacks? Absolutely Yes! > > So, we're not there yet, and it is taking longer than we had hoped because we > are trying to do so many things that we haven't done before. Yes, we screw up > a lot, and the blogosphere is having a field day pointing out the fact that we > have TP stuck on our shoe. > > So what? Is any of this a reason to give up? To write all this off as a > failed experiment? To fragment and disrupt the community over a *name*? > > Hell no! > > The glass is half full and we have the best damn OS in the world, whatever it > is called. I believe we *will* learn how to work together with each other and > with Sun, Sun *will* learn how to balance their stockholder driven need for > short term results with the long term needs of the community, and some day > (hopefully soon) we *will* look back on all this brouhaha and laugh. > > We are doing it now. > > And to make sure it /keeps/ happening, I am accepting the nomination > for the 2008-2009 OGB. > > -John > > > > _______________________________________________ > ogb-discuss mailing list > ogb-discuss at opensolaris.org > http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/ogb-discuss >
