Jim Grisanzio wrote: > > 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?
More of us getting stuck into the gaps that hinder the spread of OpenSolaris, working either as independent OpenSolaris developers or as an integral part of a Sun project team. I'd like to think that one day I can make a living as an OpenSolaris developer. > > 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? > There was a brief discussion about that on this list a while back (December 18th.), but it didn't go anywhere. We probably need to identify the non-code activities (excluding financial!) that could help the project along. My only experience of opensource projects is as a developer, anyone else here made any non-code contributions to an opensource project? > >> 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. I wasn't referring to the small contribution, but to the desire and ability to do more. > >> 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. I don't know either, when did the likes of Red Hat enter the Linux arena? I think gcc has had corporate users contributing for a long time. > >> 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. > > The only time I was paid to work on a Linux project was for a driver. It's the peripheral (in both senses of the word) development that brings people in. An audio company had designed their own sound card and chose to run Linux in their audio server because it was free and they could get a driver written. OpenSolaris could fill that niche today, if we had a way of connecting potential users with the development community. >> 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. :) > I've learned to live with the necessity of company politics, but independent developers can just get on with the code and let the politics flow by! Ian _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list [email protected]
