On Jan 31, 2007, at 7:22 PM, Brian McCafferty wrote:
I think if your adopting GPLv3 just to increase participation its a bad idea. I don't think you need to pander to some group to gain popularity. Most people here(from the responses i've read) seem quite happy with the current license.
I agree, the issue with non-SUNW participation is not the license, it's the org itself. In fact I'm sad to see that the trend is to pin the participation issues directly to what the license happens to be, because the CDDL is really a fine license to work under.
From where I see it, the participation issue is due to a process that comes pretty close to making someone a unpaid Sun employee - of sorts. To even have a contribution considered, I have to sign the Contributor Agreement. That agreement is with Sun Microsystems Inc, not OpenSolairs.ORG. Note the capital ORG, by which I mean "The OpenSolaris Organization."
Now the CA isn't a bad thing and it, like it has been already pointed out, is valuable to the community in the long view in terms of code stewardship. The problem is that the CA is not part of the community, it's with a corporate entity, and raises a situation where a potential contributor can be put into a sticky situation.
This raises additional concern to someone new because the relationship between OpenSolaris.ORG and SUNW seems rather nebulous, and it's hard to tell what sandbox the ORG's feet are firmly planted in, or where it's heading. For crying out loud, the photo of the CAB members has a big honkin' Sun logo in the background.
This is NOT to say that Sun's efforts in both in terms of birthing OpenSolaris and the manhours spent by its staff contributing to it are not appreciated... but I think that by the 2 year point, there needs to be a distinct, tangible separation between the two. The umbilical cord needs to be cut at some point; and that point, in terms of peoples' patience, is approaching.
If there's anything that could instigate a fork, it would be the failure to craft this separation.
So tell me, where do I sign up to be considered for a job such as opensolaris.org site maintenance? I'm a OpenSolaris community (not SUNW) member and I want to be involved.
/dale _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list [email protected]
