On Apr 13, 2010, at 23:27, Ben Rockwood wrote: > On 4/13/10 11:25 AM, Octave Orgeron wrote: >> I totally agree. The OGB needs to make a stand on this. Either we get >> answers from Oracle or the OGB needs to separate the OpenSolaris Community >> from Oracle and be truly autonomous. That means we get the development of >> OpenSolaris completely out in the open and let the community run it, not >> Oracle. While I would like to believe that Oracle is just unsure of how to >> handle the OpenSolaris community, they've had plenty of time to think these >> things over before the acquisition completed. It's not like Oracle wasn't >> already calling the shots beforehand inside Sun anyways. > > Here is where I want to be careful. Asking for autonomy at this > juncture would be very foolish I think. If they grant it, they will > essentially expect us to fork and re-establish the community without > Sun/Oracle resources. That means the website goes, communication is > severed, employees are instructed not to putback to the autonomous > codebase, etc. I think it would go very very badly and we'd essentially > help kill the community.
Completely agree with this, yes. The time to fork hasn't arrived yet. > The point I'm making is not that we bang on Oracle's door... but rather > that we bang on the door of our own community groups. For the OGB to > request an update from the Indiana CG for a report concerning the > delays. Thus trying to prove that we are in some way self regulating. The OGB could indeed request a status update from CGs, and going forward I believe a practice of regular, simple status reports is the way to go. I agree with you that the best way to gather information about what has happened in each CG is to request status reports. I'll be asking for CG status reports to be an early discussion topic for the new OGB. > Think about it. Who at Oracle would answer us? Some PR person? A > marketing person? John Fowler? The engineers are members of the > OpenSolaris community and leaders in our CG's. We should get answers > from them, from within. And, conversely, Oracle should speak to us > through our own ranks. That's fine for status information. If you want forward-looking information, only a person authorised by Oracle's executives will be able to deliver it. That's /the/ key difference from a community perspective between Sun and Oracle; Oracle strictly prohibits even senior staff from providing forward-looking information in public. There is no point whatever asking Oracle staff members for forward-looking information about any aspect of OpenSolaris until they have been explicitly authorised to deliver it. I gather from private communications that, whatever we may think about it, Oracle's decision-makers are truly still discussing several major issues, all the way up to Mr Ellison. They will need to get closure on a few more of these before they themselves agree what their plan for engaging with OpenSolaris will be going forward. While this is deeply frustrating, the only consequence of repeatedly asking Oracle staff for forward-looking information will be harm to our relationships together. I've sent a personal note to Dan Roberts and he will be pleased to attend the next OGB meeting to share whatever he can. Going forward, the OGB needs to ensure it has regular contact with whoever Oracle authorises to share information with the community. We really do need to get the new OGB's first meeting scheduled (Plocher made a brave first attempt) so I'll go get another scheduling e-mail together on the private list now. S. _______________________________________________ ogb-discuss mailing list ogb-discuss@opensolaris.org http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/ogb-discuss
