Hm, it seems a bit vague and broad in scope. Perhaps it would be clearer if you considered applying efforts towards a specific problem in database or application design. Open source is good for a lot of collaborative purposes but it is not the only way a product can be created. Just a general observation from my years on this list and others like it: those who know enough about software like Oracle to make full-blown products such as API's or applications are usually making money from it in one way or another.
----- additional discussion for consideration ... On one hand, you have the paid sources such as PL/SQL, SQL or Oracle database manuals from book publishers who charge $50 to $100 per title which often contains over-generalized and incomplete code samples to illustrate the most basic concepts to get most advanced developers a starting point in the right direction. On another hand, you have the myriad of blogs, Oracle reference sites and other web based references which compete every day for high rankings on Google and other search engines so that programmers like us will click on their links to generate their precious site traffic and advertising/click-stream revenue. I suppose it is only fair that these webmasters and authors also get a share of profit for hosting ideas and concepts... which may not be entirely their own. And then there's the charity cases. These are listservers, forums and other guided help sources with public, community support. The contributors have varying motives: Some post questions exclusively, constantly leaning on other members for continual support, advice and guidance. Some with more experience or knowledge try their hand at fielding answers in the spirit of helping fellow developers and programmers alike. I am sad to observe however that the altruism of this latter group is a dying breed in this Web 2.0, revised version of the Internet. With the advent of "cut-and-paste" programmers or students trolling Google searches to find answers that look suitable enough to cut-and-paste into their term papers and take-home final exams. Some are even so bold as to outright parrot their test questions (or their boss's/client's requirements) word for word and unfiltered in the hopes that an immediate answer will be spoon-fed to them. There is nothing wrong with copying. Often it is a stepping stone to learning for ourselves how to handle new concepts and techniques. I would like to distinguish the career copycats from the organic, hands-on learners. The difference is often painfully obvious but impossible to separate out in public forums... posted content is out there for anyone to read, regardless of their personal motivation. Perhaps this is also why there is a reluctance to build meaningful discussions on this list. I recently posted a tickler for discussion asking about opinions on application design, database design and other programming strategies. The prompt miserably failed to attract response. I suppose this falls under the category of Rule #1: Anyone with enough meaningful Oracle/database knowledge is probably making money from it. My previous discussion prompt and Sonty's proposal falls under the realm of highly-paid consultants who usually brought in by team managers to "educate" their full-time counterparts or to lend some form of opinion from their "expertise". Why would people pay for their advice if they knew that the same level of expertise could be accumulated by simply pointing to Google groups? Forum and listserver "charity" contributions aren't all that bad. I have seen some excellent, well documented chunks of sample code with the intent of teaching a concept or a lesson from someone's personal expertise and knowledge. In turn, the contributor's identity experiences a boost in the "human" search engine. People over time learn who these persons are and instantly seek them out for advice or opinions from authority. These people also are often book authors, website owners (with ad revenue streams enabled) or offer "consultant" services for premium fees. Then there's the "other" category of rabble: the egoists. People who post purely from the satisfaction of solving problems or demonstrating personal skills and knowledge... nothing wrong with ego! If someone else also manages to get some help in the deal, it's a win-win situation as well. Sonty, in final response to your idea, it sounds like a good one, but the pool of Oracle talent and resources come from a different genre and parentage than their open source neighbors. Traditionally open source platforms: linux, perl, PHP, mysql, etc. have experienced great success in the open source arena because their products were founded on these concepts of an open platform framework. Oracle, a proprietary software platform, is not. From my observations, the culture and mindset in the Oracle domain is just different from "open source". There are a handful of built-in product API's already in the Oracle product, but programmers need to at least have a skill level high enough to comprehend the publisher's documentation or possess enough money to enroll in private tutoring or instructional courses on their use. In a legal sense, are we as developers even able to distribute PL/SQL code under a open source license? No matter what we do to sanitize our code, the method of expression is still based on a proprietary construct (language). I have seen PL/SQL packages and applications chartered as "freeware" products, but that is a very different licensing scheme than "open source". How can any code generated on a non-open platform be legitimately open-source itself? Linux open-source purists for example, often build distros of their product purged of any proprietary code/software including low-level hardware drivers. So, consider your original motivations in suggesting an open-source project. Depending on what you want to get back out of the effort, there are a number of ways to initiate the project's charter and scope. Rich Pascual -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Oracle PL/SQL" group. 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