Ian Collins wrote:
Dennis's post on the GPLv3 thread:
"Let's fast forward two more years and if we have another mad rush of
people NOT joining this project what then? Another marketting fix and we
rename this to the Java Enterprise OpenSolaris project with Sun
Community Source License ( SCSL ) license added and on and on we go
trying to fix something."
got me thinking about why we don't have more community participation on
OpenSolaris.
Can you be more specific what you mean by "community participation" in
this context?
So far, I'm getting the impression from these two threads today that
what people mean is primarily code contributions and/or anything
specific to working with the code. Which is fine, of course, but I think
that represents just one way someone can contribute, and it also
represents the smallest number of people in the community (since they
are the most advanced). By the way, I feel that at this early stage we
are not nearly diversified enough to really engage non-technical people,
but I'd love for that to be the goal.
There have been a few conversations about community participation, and
aside from the obvious technical issues that Shawn, Dennis, and others
have (thankfully) pointed out, I'm wondering if we ought to expand the
conversation to be more inclusive of non-code activities. Please gag me
for saying this, but do we need some sort of program to help this issue
along?
Like Dennis, I've been here since the pilot, but unlike Dennis, my
contribution has been negligible. My excuse is simply time, I have a
hungry bank manager and kids to feed, so I don't have a lot of spare
time for what amounts to 'hobby' coding. I'm sure there are many others
out here in a similar position.
Indeed there are. But all contributions should be honored.
Unlike OpenSolaris, the Linux world has a many corporations paying for
work on the kernel, drivers and applications.
Did they have that 20 months into the project? I have no clue; I'm
asking out of genuine ignorance.
On one had this shows the
quality of the engineering team at Sun, but on the other it puts us at a
disadvantage. I don't think the community involvement in OpenSolaris
will grow until we have more companies willing to pay for work on the
project.
Having substantial corporate support for various development efforts
would be interesting for sure (though I have no idea what that would
look like in our case). Linux didn't grow from a company like we are.
But your point is a good one and something to look forward to as we
expand and non-Sun community members take leadership roles.
I'd like nothing better than to combine my two decades of
SunOs/Solaris and driver experience and make a real contribution to the
project, but I simply can't afford to.
I think you bring up a really good point. Sun pays me to do what I do,
and so from that perspective I'm lucky. We Sun people have to deal with
the corporate politics, though, so in that sense we are unlucky. :)
The big question is how can we make this happen? Is there a demand from
corporate users willing to pay for drivers and functionality? If there
is, can Sun (who I assume know who wants what) through OpenSolaris
connect them with developers in the community able to do the work?
Jim
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