On Dec 11, 2007 5:06 PM, John Plocher <John.Plocher at sun.com> wrote: > Keith M Wesolowski wrote: > > To my knowledge, SMI has not provided the OGB with anything that could > > reasonably be considered an interpretation in this area, either. > > To my knowledge as well, this is true. > > On the other hand, the charter is pretty explicit: > > "However, nothing in this charter shall be construed so as to > confer to the OGB: ... (b) control of or interest in any asset, > tangible or intangible, of Sun Microsystems, Inc. > > I'm not sure where there is any room for interpretation - the > systems used to host OS.o are Sun assets. That some in the > community feel that they (or the OGB) has (or should have) control > over these assets is interesting, but not supported by the charter.
That matches my personal interpretation of the matter. Sun has allowed the community to use their resources, while paying for them, despite the difficulty I suspect they have in justifying such expenditures as a public company. > This is the same boat that the OpenSolaris Trademark is in - if Sun > wished to, they could simply assert that they owned it all and they > could do whatever they pleased. They do, and they could, but they > haven't. Instead, they have set up structures that encourage > interaction with, and involvement by members of the wider community. Indeed. My problem is that the community seems willing to take everything Sun offers while giving very little in return. Sun has the right to market and use their properties as they see fit; that includes the OpenSolaris trademark. Part of justifying expenditures, such as this community, by Sun I suspect includes the belief that there will be some sort of return on investment, whether that is intangible (good will), tangible (the ability to market trademarks) or a combination thereof. > Up to now, the editorial oversight has been ad-hoc - provided by > whomever was motivated and empowered to make changes. I proposed > the creation of the website editorial board as a place to start > resolving questions like yours; hopefully it will become the defacto > place where such Sun<->Community interactions will happen, and > where any needed clarifications will be made. Quite true; individuals paid by Sun have contributed countless hours as a part of and on behalf of this community both on and off-the-clock. Up until recently, there seemed to be little problem with Sun having discretion over certain areas. -- Shawn Walker, Software and Systems Analyst http://binarycrusader.blogspot.com/ "To err is human -- and to blame it on a computer is even more so." - Robert Orben
