On Wednesday 10 January 2007 03:00, Timothy Miller wrote: > While we're on the subject of organizational names, we may want to > take this opportunity to have a look at our organizational structure. > > It is rather unusual for there to be three different names, perhaps > suggesting three different groups, all being applied to what is > really one project.
I'm not sure. There's the GNU project which creates software, the Free Software Foundation that serves the interest of all free software, GNU or not, and there is Red Hat, who sell support for free software, GNU or not, and are independent of the FSF. The only place where I see a discrepancy between what the naming suggests and what the idea behind it is, is that by the sound of it, Traversal Technology is to the OGP what Red Hat is to GNU, rather than what the Mozilla Corporation is to the Mozilla Project. So if we're having nutty ideas, perhaps TT could be renamed to Open Graphics Corporation? > Of course, many Free Software projects don't > need any sort of legal establishment. Only once they reach a point > where they're so big that they start having to deal with legal issues > and the like do they need to form legal entities. > > We're quite different. We absolutely MUST manage money in order to > exist. Hardware is expensive, so we need to have legal status and a > system for handling funds from the beginning. It also makes sense > that there would be a for-profit division that also acts as > insulation against the "corporate world", as well as a non-profit > division to handle donations and act as an interface to the FOSS > community. > > But is there really now any need for there to be a nebulous third > entity that we currently call the Open Graphics Project? It has no > legal status and doesn't need it, so it's served, for some time, as > an umbrella. But the three names probably are cause for confusion, > and we may want to simplify things. Well, what else are you going to call the cloud of unaffiliated hardware developers that work on the designs for graphics cards we're creating, but are not employees of TT? They don't have much to do with Traversal Technology, and they may not have anything to do with the OHF either. > I would like to ponder the idea that we consider choosing one new > name to cover the all of the Free aspects of the OGP and the OHF and > officially declare everything to be under that name. Later the OHF > could take on that name legally. Ultimately, this would relegate > "OGP" to being the first of many projects under the guidance of the > OHF. The OHF would serve its grand purpose of bringing people and > organized projects together to make and promote Free Hardware > Designs. I don't see how the Open Graphics Project can not be the first of many projects under the guidance of the Open Hardware Foundation. If it were called Open Graphics Foundation that would be something else, which is exactly why we didn't call it that. However, I would really prefer the OHF to become mostly an "above the fray" type organisation that worries about certification, promotion, education, and so on. In the early stages, while the community is small, the OHF may take a more hands-on approach and get involved with the design and creation of hardware more directly (e.g. using donations to provide a guaranteed minimum number of sales to TT, hiring people to design hardware, and so on). > This may change the definition of what it means to be a member of the > OGP. Right now, what does it mean? That you're signed onto the > mailing list? The nice thing about that is that it doesn't take on a > snobby "elite club" character. Any interested person can benefit or > make a contribution. On the other hand, there are beneficial effects > to having an official flavor to what it means to be a "member," in > that people are more inclined to keep their attention focused on > achieving the common goals. We'll have to play this by ear over > time. > > As you can see, I have some rather incomplete thoughts here. But it > may be beneficial, at least in name, to "combine" everything under > one heading, with a single, clear purpose. - The goal of the OGP is to create a Freely Usable* graphics card design. - The goal of TT is to sell Freely Usable graphics cards based on the OGP design. - The goal of the OHF is to promote the creation of Free Hardware Designs, Free Design Hardware, and Freely Usable Hardware, all of which are Free Software Compatible. I can see clear alignment and overlap between OGP and TT, but not necessarily between OHF and the others. And I think that it would actually be good to have a bit of distance between the OHF and the rest. Lourens * Freely Usable is my latest invention for the documented-interface-but-secret-design class of hardware. It can't be mistaken for gratis, resonates with software freedom 0 as well as with Free Software Compatible, and doesn't have the ambiguity of Open or Open Standard.
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