Re: [osol-discuss] Community participation
Hey, Jim Grisanzio wrote: Some have been considering a bug bounty program, so yes, I think we ought to consider specific programs to engage more people in more ways and then call attention to their contributions. We really need to get our submission for the Summer of Code rocking this year - an exceptional line up of interesting projects would be awesome to see! Glynn ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Community participation
On 6-Feb-07, at 6:03 PM, Glynn Foster wrote: Hey, Jim Grisanzio wrote: Some have been considering a bug bounty program, so yes, I think we ought to consider specific programs to engage more people in more ways and then call attention to their contributions. We really need to get our submission for the Summer of Code rocking this year - an exceptional line up of interesting projects would be awesome to see! Anyone know when SoC2007 starts taking applications? ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Community participation (was GPLv3 ravings)
S Destika wrote: So you would say the IBM and Red Hat aren't part of the Linux community? Ah I like stating the obvious. IBM and RedHat are not driving the community. Yes they are part of the community and no one could deny that but the key is that they work within the community's interests. They comply with the community's rules, they do not, for example force strategies, usage of tools, SCM, processes on the community. Community decides that stuff and everyone in the community happily uses it. The SCM selection was open and made with community participation. The change is a huge one for Sun, without any added business value outside of the context of Open Solaris. Like it or not, the vast majority of community members who are active contributors are Sun employees, so their opinion (as individuals, no a corporate entity) will drive the project's direction, that's how democracy works Can we we have the details of those 8 x86 systems please? I can't believe you are doing anything other than being disruptive if you can't back up this one simple claim. Ian ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Community participation (was GPLv3 ravings)
SD == S Destika S writes: SD It is time to recognize that better alternatives exist - two trees, SD one development controlled by some one independent and driven purely SD by community interests and one Sun's own tree. Let community set SD their standards, do what they care about and let Sun cherry pick SD what they need and what passes their quality bars. Benefit everyone, SD unlike years without progress and only Sun drives and benefits. This (or something like it) has been suggested a couple times in the past, even before the public launch. Until now it's been infeasible, because we didn't have any SCM support on opensolaris.org. That stumbling block should go away once we have the Mercurial support in order (next couple weeks?). So I suppose someone could propose a project which just takes other stuff and integrates it for people to play with. mike ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Community participation (was GPLv3 ravings)
Mike Kupfer wrote: SD == S Destika S writes: SD It is time to recognize that better alternatives exist - two trees, SD one development controlled by some one independent and driven purely SD by community interests and one Sun's own tree. Let community set SD their standards, do what they care about and let Sun cherry pick SD what they need and what passes their quality bars. Benefit everyone, SD unlike years without progress and only Sun drives and benefits. This seems to assume that 'our' quality bar is lower. I'm not at all sure that's the case. (it also assumes that only Sun is benefiting, and various other things I disagree with, but...) This (or something like it) has been suggested a couple times in the past, even before the public launch. Until now it's been infeasible, because we didn't have any SCM support on opensolaris.org. That stumbling block should go away once we have the Mercurial support in order (next couple weeks?). It's feasible, but as I've said in the restricted builds thread, I don't think it's a good idea to have two distinct 'us' and 'them' gates. (where 'us' and 'them' mean whatever you choose them to). So I suppose someone could propose a project which just takes other stuff and integrates it for people to play with. Projects are projects, I don't immediately think I have any specific problem with a *project* that pulls in code from various other projects, or the like. But I'm strongly opposed to the *gate* being a mishmash of such things. At various points in these threads people have suggested that lowering standards would be helpful, or even would be necessary. I disagree with that entirely. -- Rich ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
[osol-discuss] Community participation (was GPLv3 ravings)
Erast Benson wrote: I didn't say we are dead community. :-) And I said almost zero participation from outside of Sun What are your expectations here? That at some point in the future, more than 25% of the contributions will come from outside of Sun? 50%? 75%? 100%? This community is intended to be inclusive of both Sun and non-Sun engineers; in my mind, it would be a disaster to have an OpenSolaris community where there was little or no Sun engineering presence. That would turn OpenSolaris into one of those worthless toss it over the wall and see if it survives debacles. My expectations are pretty modest: I don't expect individual contributers to take on huge projects, though there will always be exceptional people who do the impossible - and make it look easy! I expect lots of people (inside and outside of Sun) to take on and be successful at simple things - bugfixes, low hanging fruit, etc. Being pragmatic, I believe that it takes a long term commitment (meaning money and people) to do non-trivial projects, and as such, implies corporate backing - Sun's or Apple's or All open source efforts stratify into tiers: Core leaders, Core doers, Peripheral doers, Talkers and Watchers. OpenSolaris is no different. I expect that this will show itself in the beginning as Most community members will be content to sit back and watch Some will be vocal and want to be heard on the various mailing lists A few will get involved with the code Fewer still will actually submit bugfixes and simple RFEs A relative handful will get involved, start taking charge, make waves, etc A dozen or less will succeed and become leaders. This isn't just an OpenSolaris viewpoint; it holds true for all the other open source efforts I am or have been involved with as well. -John ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Community participation (was GPLv3 ravings)
Well said John. This is my expectation as well. -- mark John Plocher wrote: Erast Benson wrote: I didn't say we are dead community. :-) And I said almost zero participation from outside of Sun What are your expectations here? That at some point in the future, more than 25% of the contributions will come from outside of Sun? 50%? 75%? 100%? This community is intended to be inclusive of both Sun and non-Sun engineers; in my mind, it would be a disaster to have an OpenSolaris community where there was little or no Sun engineering presence. That would turn OpenSolaris into one of those worthless toss it over the wall and see if it survives debacles. My expectations are pretty modest: I don't expect individual contributers to take on huge projects, though there will always be exceptional people who do the impossible - and make it look easy! I expect lots of people (inside and outside of Sun) to take on and be successful at simple things - bugfixes, low hanging fruit, etc. Being pragmatic, I believe that it takes a long term commitment (meaning money and people) to do non-trivial projects, and as such, implies corporate backing - Sun's or Apple's or All open source efforts stratify into tiers: Core leaders, Core doers, Peripheral doers, Talkers and Watchers. OpenSolaris is no different. I expect that this will show itself in the beginning as Most community members will be content to sit back and watch Some will be vocal and want to be heard on the various mailing lists A few will get involved with the code Fewer still will actually submit bugfixes and simple RFEs A relative handful will get involved, start taking charge, make waves, etc A dozen or less will succeed and become leaders. This isn't just an OpenSolaris viewpoint; it holds true for all the other open source efforts I am or have been involved with as well. -John ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Community participation (was GPLv3 ravings)
OK. I'll buy it. Than based on what we can claim that our community is indeed fast-growing, what numbers we should use? If we have such numbers, could somebody provide a comparative statistics during past 6 months? Could it be over-all number of users on mailing lists? How many subscribed/unsubscribed during certain period? Number of downloads may be? On Thu, 2007-02-01 at 09:55 -0800, John Plocher wrote: Erast Benson wrote: I didn't say we are dead community. :-) And I said almost zero participation from outside of Sun What are your expectations here? That at some point in the future, more than 25% of the contributions will come from outside of Sun? 50%? 75%? 100%? This community is intended to be inclusive of both Sun and non-Sun engineers; in my mind, it would be a disaster to have an OpenSolaris community where there was little or no Sun engineering presence. That would turn OpenSolaris into one of those worthless toss it over the wall and see if it survives debacles. My expectations are pretty modest: I don't expect individual contributers to take on huge projects, though there will always be exceptional people who do the impossible - and make it look easy! I expect lots of people (inside and outside of Sun) to take on and be successful at simple things - bugfixes, low hanging fruit, etc. Being pragmatic, I believe that it takes a long term commitment (meaning money and people) to do non-trivial projects, and as such, implies corporate backing - Sun's or Apple's or All open source efforts stratify into tiers: Core leaders, Core doers, Peripheral doers, Talkers and Watchers. OpenSolaris is no different. I expect that this will show itself in the beginning as Most community members will be content to sit back and watch Some will be vocal and want to be heard on the various mailing lists A few will get involved with the code Fewer still will actually submit bugfixes and simple RFEs A relative handful will get involved, start taking charge, make waves, etc A dozen or less will succeed and become leaders. This isn't just an OpenSolaris viewpoint; it holds true for all the other open source efforts I am or have been involved with as well. -John ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org -- Erast ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Community participation (was GPLv3 ravings)
On 2/1/07, Erast Benson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: OK. I'll buy it. Than based on what we can claim that our community is indeed fast-growing, what numbers we should use? If we have such numbers, could somebody provide a comparative statistics during past 6 months? Could it be over-all number of users on mailing lists? How many subscribed/unsubscribed during certain period? Number of downloads may be? There are some metrics: http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/marketing/metrics/latest/ -- -Peter Tribble http://www.petertribble.co.uk/ - http://ptribble.blogspot.com/ ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Community participation (was GPLv3 ravings)
unfortunately, I do not see up-and-to-the-right type of numbers, but at least numbers are steady, this gives me more hopes that it is not to late to fix that if at all possible/needed. On Thu, 2007-02-01 at 19:28 +, Peter Tribble wrote: On 2/1/07, Erast Benson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: OK. I'll buy it. Than based on what we can claim that our community is indeed fast-growing, what numbers we should use? If we have such numbers, could somebody provide a comparative statistics during past 6 months? Could it be over-all number of users on mailing lists? How many subscribed/unsubscribed during certain period? Number of downloads may be? There are some metrics: http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/marketing/metrics/latest/ -- -Peter Tribble http://www.petertribble.co.uk/ - http://ptribble.blogspot.com/ ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org -- Erast ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Community participation (was GPLv3 ravings)
Erast Benson wrote: unfortunately, I do not see up-and-to-the-right type of numbers, but at least numbers are steady, this gives me more hopes that it is not to late to fix that if at all possible/needed. On Thu, 2007-02-01 at 19:28 +, Peter Tribble wrote: On 2/1/07, Erast Benson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: OK. I'll buy it. Than based on what we can claim that our community is indeed fast-growing, what numbers we should use? If we have such numbers, could somebody provide a comparative statistics during past 6 months? Could it be over-all number of users on mailing lists? How many subscribed/unsubscribed during certain period? Number of downloads may be? There are some metrics: http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/marketing/metrics/latest/ Hi Erast, I *really* do not understand why you appear to be so concerned about how large or extensive the OpenSolaris community actually is. Yes, the number of those who would call themselves part of the OpenSolaris community is probably not as large as Linux-adherents, but who really cares? Why does it matter? Having numbers just for sake of a mine is larger than yours style competition is a distraction from the real effort of making OpenSolaris better. James C. McPherson -- Solaris kernel software engineer Sun Microsystems ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Community participation (was GPLv3 ravings)
James C. McPherson wrote: Erast Benson wrote: unfortunately, I do not see up-and-to-the-right type of numbers, but at least numbers are steady, this gives me more hopes that it is not to late to fix that if at all possible/needed. Hi Erast, I *really* do not understand why you appear to be so concerned about how large or extensive the OpenSolaris community actually is. Yes, the number of those who would call themselves part of the OpenSolaris community is probably not as large as Linux-adherents, but who really cares? Why does it matter? Having numbers just for sake of a mine is larger than yours style competition is a distraction from the real effort of making OpenSolaris better. A big +1 to that, quality matters, not quantity. Users are a different matter, we want lots of those. Are there any published download stats for OpenSolaris distributions? Ian ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Community participation (was GPLv3 ravings)
On Thursday 01 February 2007 12:57 pm, James C. McPherson wrote: Yes, the number of those who would call themselves part of the OpenSolaris community is probably not as large as Linux-adherents, but who really cares? Why does it matter? Hear, hear! One thing is for certain...the Linux community shook the world. Here we are discussing our existince with them, it's something we can't ignore. I am in no way advocating we join them, I am in no way saying we follow them, I am merely advocating for a way both of us can exist with each other peacefully. I would appreciate it if our OpenSolaris community is recognized by other communities as being some of the innovators, and I think OpenSolaris is already by many. It is not mandatory that we are though, and I won't loose sleep over it if we aren't. Sun has made a massive amount of changes to their process and code in order to make it available in the community, something that was a far fetched idea a couple years ago. Is it bad we see some of the Sun folks protecting their investing in Solaris? I think not, some poured their lives into it, just like some of the Linux community poured theirs into their work. The name calling just doesn't help either of us. It's kind of interesting seeing a substantial percentage of Sun folks (who know the process inside of Sun BTW;-) that seem to feel we've made good progress. OTOH, I would say most of the community folks don't feel it's made very much progress at all. Perspective is relative. -- Alan DuBoff - Solaris x86 Engineering - IHV/OEM Group Advocate of Insourcing at Sun, hire people that care about our company! ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Community participation (was GPLv3 ravings)
Erast Benson wrote On 02/02/07 03:51,: OK. I'll buy it. Than based on what we can claim that our community is indeed fast-growing, what numbers we should use? If we have such numbers, could somebody provide a comparative statistics during past 6 months? Oh, I don't think we're growing fast. :) I just thing we're growing, that's all. We track all sorts of metrics around here: code, bugs, conferences, website hits, forum hits, registrations, emails, threads, geo growth, downloads, user groups, etc. Jim Could it be over-all number of users on mailing lists? How many subscribed/unsubscribed during certain period? Number of downloads may be? On Thu, 2007-02-01 at 09:55 -0800, John Plocher wrote: Erast Benson wrote: I didn't say we are dead community. :-) And I said almost zero participation from outside of Sun What are your expectations here? That at some point in the future, more than 25% of the contributions will come from outside of Sun? 50%? 75%? 100%? This community is intended to be inclusive of both Sun and non-Sun engineers; in my mind, it would be a disaster to have an OpenSolaris community where there was little or no Sun engineering presence. That would turn OpenSolaris into one of those worthless toss it over the wall and see if it survives debacles. My expectations are pretty modest: I don't expect individual contributers to take on huge projects, though there will always be exceptional people who do the impossible - and make it look easy! I expect lots of people (inside and outside of Sun) to take on and be successful at simple things - bugfixes, low hanging fruit, etc. Being pragmatic, I believe that it takes a long term commitment (meaning money and people) to do non-trivial projects, and as such, implies corporate backing - Sun's or Apple's or All open source efforts stratify into tiers: Core leaders, Core doers, Peripheral doers, Talkers and Watchers. OpenSolaris is no different. I expect that this will show itself in the beginning as Most community members will be content to sit back and watch Some will be vocal and want to be heard on the various mailing lists A few will get involved with the code Fewer still will actually submit bugfixes and simple RFEs A relative handful will get involved, start taking charge, make waves, etc A dozen or less will succeed and become leaders. This isn't just an OpenSolaris viewpoint; it holds true for all the other open source efforts I am or have been involved with as well. -John ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Community participation (was GPLv3 ravings)
Peter Tribble wrote On 02/02/07 04:28,: On 2/1/07, *Erast Benson* [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: OK. I'll buy it. Than based on what we can claim that our community is indeed fast-growing, what numbers we should use? If we have such numbers, could somebody provide a comparative statistics during past 6 months? Could it be over-all number of users on mailing lists? How many subscribed/unsubscribed during certain period? Number of downloads may be? There are some metrics: http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/marketing/metrics/latest/ yes, this is the fine work of Patrick Finch. Jim ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Community participation (was GPLv3 ravings)
James C. McPherson wrote On 02/02/07 05:57,: Having numbers just for sake of a mine is larger than yours style competition is a distraction from the real effort of making OpenSolaris better. Totally agree. Jim ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Community participation
You might want to get a English translation of the article on page 94 of January's issue of this German magazine: http://www.linux-magazin.de/Artikel/ausgabe/2007/02 This will explain in part what is going wrong with Linux. Sun and the Community would be wise to understand the points made therein. There is another thing. IBM is hiring as many of the key contributors it can. RB On Jan 31, 2007, at 1:58 AM, Alan DuBoff wrote: On Tuesday 30 January 2007 11:42 pm, Ian Collins wrote: I don't dispute that, the fact the Solaris can better Linux in many ways is a strong indicator as to the quality and number of developers at Sun. My point is not so much that more than one company contributes to core Linux, but many companies pay staff to work on Linux derived code, whether it be embedded or PC based. This is no different than Sun paying staff that works on OpenSolaris, and Sun has open sourced more code than any other single company. One of the more likely candidates for such a project might be 3Ware. Anyone interested in working on 3Ware drivers? I would. Let me see what I can find out, I've talked to them a couple times. It might be possible to get some hardware and help with specs as well. Do you have a particular chipset of theirs that interest you? -- Alan DuBoff - Solaris x86 Engineering - IHV/OEM Group Advocate of insourcing at Sun - hire people that care about our company! ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Community participation
Alan DuBoff wrote: On Tuesday 30 January 2007 11:42 pm, Ian Collins wrote: I don't dispute that, the fact the Solaris can better Linux in many ways is a strong indicator as to the quality and number of developers at Sun. My point is not so much that more than one company contributes to core Linux, but many companies pay staff to work on Linux derived code, whether it be embedded or PC based. This is no different than Sun paying staff that works on OpenSolaris, and Sun has open sourced more code than any other single company. Maybe, but it's the perception - all it would take would be for one reasonably well known company to pick up on OpenSolaris to embed in their product and the perception of OpenSolaris would shift away form it being Sun only. At the moment, the almost automatic choice would be Linux. One of the more likely candidates for such a project might be 3Ware. Anyone interested in working on 3Ware drivers? I would. Let me see what I can find out, I've talked to them a couple times. It might be possible to get some hardware and help with specs as well. Do you have a particular chipset of theirs that interest you? To be honest, I haven't been through their stuff in too much detail because I haven't seen chip specs and they don't support Solaris! It's probably more of a case of which part is in demand. Cheers, Ian ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Community participation
On Wednesday 31 January 2007 12:21 am, Ian Collins wrote: Maybe, but it's the perception - all it would take would be for one reasonably well known company to pick up on OpenSolaris to embed in their product and the perception of OpenSolaris would shift away form it being Sun only. At the moment, the almost automatic choice would be Linux. Well, that is happening already. Intel announced their support for Solaris/OpenSolaris, and Intel is interested in open sourcing their drivers, and want to play well with Sun, as does Sun with Intel. IBM is also embracing it on their blade centers, and are a reseller of Solaris. So there are things happening in this regard. To be honest, I haven't been through their stuff in too much detail because I haven't seen chip specs and they don't support Solaris! It's probably more of a case of which part is in demand. I'll see what I can find out. -- Alan DuBoff - Solaris x86 Engineering - IHV/OEM Group Advocate of insourcing at Sun - hire people that care about our company! ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Community participation
Raquel Velasco and Bill Buck wrote On 01/31/07 17:06,: You might want to get a English translation of the article on page 94 of January's issue of this German magazine: http://www.linux-magazin.de/Artikel/ausgabe/2007/02 This will explain in part what is going wrong with Linux. Sun and the Community would be wise to understand the points made therein. There is another thing. IBM is hiring as many of the key contributors it can. hey, thanks. I'll look for the English piece. I'm a little up to my ears learning Japanese at the moment to take on German as well. :) I hadn't heard the IBM bit, but I don't really follow the Linux community closely. Jim RB On Jan 31, 2007, at 1:58 AM, Alan DuBoff wrote: On Tuesday 30 January 2007 11:42 pm, Ian Collins wrote: I don't dispute that, the fact the Solaris can better Linux in many ways is a strong indicator as to the quality and number of developers at Sun. My point is not so much that more than one company contributes to core Linux, but many companies pay staff to work on Linux derived code, whether it be embedded or PC based. This is no different than Sun paying staff that works on OpenSolaris, and Sun has open sourced more code than any other single company. One of the more likely candidates for such a project might be 3Ware. Anyone interested in working on 3Ware drivers? I would. Let me see what I can find out, I've talked to them a couple times. It might be possible to get some hardware and help with specs as well. Do you have a particular chipset of theirs that interest you? -- Alan DuBoff - Solaris x86 Engineering - IHV/OEM Group Advocate of insourcing at Sun - hire people that care about our company! ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Community participation
Ian Collins wrote On 01/31/07 15:42,: 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. Oh, there have been several. Most only last a day or two with no real consensus reached. 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? some non-technical stuff * writing docs (well, that one is pretty technical, sorry) * writing articles/news * evangelism (hate the term but it's obvious what it means) * translating content to other languages * starting and running user groups * presenting at conferences * teaching at universities (a bit technical, too) * writing books (ok, technical) * serving on governing boards * answering questions on list * participating on list and IRC * writing FAQs * blogging * taking pictures, creating artwork, etc We've been getting many such contributions and participation, but I'm not sure there's been any real consensus to call attention to this stuff. Jim 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
Re: [osol-discuss] Community participation
On 1/31/07, Ian Collins [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: thinking about why we don't have more community participation on OpenSolaris. This has worried me too. Remember, though, that all the Sun people count as community too and I'm sure they are contributing too. I don't see committing code as the only success metric in determining participation, either. What I think we do need is some way to focus (external) community members, so they get an opportunity to contribute. I don't know how to do this, but I'm sure that expecting people to start off by contributing code (by any process) straight away isn't always going to be appropriate. I'm sure there are a lot of people lurking on the lists, watching the forums, and ocasionally sticking their head above the parapet. Is there any way we can construct a framework so that they can start to do useful work and begin to get involved, which might then lead to independent involvement at a deeper level? Is there any mileage in things like bug days, or focussed campaigns on particular topics? -- -Peter Tribble http://www.petertribble.co.uk/ - http://ptribble.blogspot.com/ ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Community participation
Hey, Peter Tribble wrote: Is there any mileage in things like bug days, or focussed campaigns on particular topics? All these things would be absolutely awesome - just takes one person to stand up and volunteer to take it on. FWIW, as a Sun employee, 90% of my OpenSolaris work at the moment is actually based outside of the desktop and JDS. I'm obviously in the fortunate position of being paid by Sun, but my current fascination *isn't* the desktop, but more of an understanding of the OpenSolaris governance model, the difficulties in creating a community, the processes involved in kernel development, and morbidly, kernel code. Go figure. It's exciting, I want to be involved as a community member, not Sun, and I believe most of my actions are indicative of that. Find what your niche and contribute in whatever way you can. I'd encourage everyone to do so. Glynn ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Community participation
Peter Tribble wrote On 02/01/07 06:28,: On 1/31/07, *Ian Collins* [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: thinking about why we don't have more community participation on OpenSolaris. This has worried me too. Remember, though, that all the Sun people count as community too and I'm sure they are contributing too. I don't see committing code as the only success metric in determining participation, either. What I think we do need is some way to focus (external) community members, so they get an opportunity to contribute. I don't know how to do this, but I'm sure that expecting people to start off by contributing code (by any process) straight away isn't always going to be appropriate. I'm sure there are a lot of people lurking on the lists, watching the forums, and ocasionally sticking their head above the parapet. Is there any way we can construct a framework so that they can start to do useful work and begin to get involved, which might then lead to independent involvement at a deeper level? Is there any mileage in things like bug days, or focussed campaigns on particular topics? Some have been considering a bug bounty program, so yes, I think we ought to consider specific programs to engage more people in more ways and then call attention to their contributions. Jim ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Community participation
On 31-Jan-07, at 9:37 PM, Jim Grisanzio wrote: Some have been considering a bug bounty program, so yes, I think we ought to consider specific programs to engage more people in more ways and then call attention to their contributions. Fantastic! :) I honestly think that'd be a great idea. Either I imagined it (which is a possibility) or OpenBSD has hack-a-thons where everyone meets at $PLACE and programs nonstop all weekend... also a cool idea.. ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
[osol-discuss] Community participation
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. 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. Unlike OpenSolaris, the Linux world has a many corporations paying for work on the kernel, drivers and applications. 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. 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. 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? Ian. ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Community participation
I got one silly hypothesis, though its validity is greatly offset by my employment and, very likely, my upbringing. One of the most strike contrasts when moving from Russia to a capitalist society was the notion of private property. Skipping the long thought process, it seems to me that people care much more about something they own, than something they borrow. I could care less about ceiling leaks in my rented apartment, but look at those home owners, with their wallets out at the home depot :) Or the way stock options affect stock holders. The Linux community seems to have a more pronounced ownership feeling about the code, the if we don't do it, noone will sort of thing. Certain weight of responsibility. With OpenSolaris though, Sun acts as a supreme being that takes responsibility for both screwups and successes. Do the community contributors feel at home here? Do they feel like they own anything there? Like their actions have direct impact and their efforts really paying off? -Artem. ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Community participation
I got one silly hypothesis, though its validity is greatly offset by my employment and, very likely, my upbringing. One of the most strike contrasts when moving from Russia to a capitalist society was the notion of private property. Skipping the long thought process, it seems to me that people care much more about something they own, than something they borrow. I could care less about ceiling leaks in my rented apartment, but look at those home owners, with their wallets out at the home depot :) Or the way stock options affect stock holders. The Linux community seems to have a more pronounced ownership feeling about the code, the if we don't do it, noone will sort of thing. Certain weight of responsibility. With OpenSolaris though, Sun acts as a supreme being that takes responsibility for both screwups and successes. Do the community contributors feel at home here? Do they feel like they own anything there? Like their actions have direct impact and their efforts really paying off? -Artem. wow ... I just got a shiver you nailed it down. really .. do I feel like a visitor in someone elses big fancy office? Or am I in the cheap office with folding tables and network cables all over the place. I feel very much like a vistor .. coffee cup in hand .. sit over there and ... wait. Try not to disturb the employees. That sort of thing. -- Dennis Clarke ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Community participation
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 ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Community participation
Artem Kachitchkine wrote: I got one silly hypothesis, though its validity is greatly offset by my employment and, very likely, my upbringing. One of the most strike contrasts when moving from Russia to a capitalist society was the notion of private property. Skipping the long thought process, it seems to me that people care much more about something they own, than something they borrow. I could care less about ceiling leaks in my rented apartment, but look at those home owners, with their wallets out at the home depot :) Or the way stock options affect stock holders. The Linux community seems to have a more pronounced ownership feeling about the code, the if we don't do it, noone will sort of thing. Certain weight of responsibility. With OpenSolaris though, Sun acts as a supreme being that takes responsibility for both screwups and successes. Do the community contributors feel at home here? Do they feel like they own anything there? Like their actions have direct impact and their efforts really paying off? I think we are more like the audience at a show, audience participation is encouraged, but the show has a plot to follow. Not only do Linux people have a more pronounced ownership feeling about the code, but a widely dispersed number of them make their living from the code, either through consulting, freelance development or employment. The same applies to a number of other successful opensource projects. Ian ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Community participation
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 opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Community participation
On Tuesday 30 January 2007 06:44 pm, Ian Collins wrote: Like Dennis, I've been here since the pilot, but unlike Dennis, my contribution has been negligible. I would argue that you've been around and a part of the Solaris x86 community for quite some time. It's really not about anyone doing more, or less, it's about everyone doing whatever they can. There's a lot of people that have been around various communities hanging off the wire, and things continue to get better than where they were, IMO. Unlike OpenSolaris, the Linux world has a many corporations paying for work on the kernel, drivers and applications. But Sun has a tremendous amount of engineers working on Solaris, more than any other single company, IMO. I don't think the community involvement in OpenSolaris will grow until we have more companies willing to pay for work on the project. I don't believe that. And Sun is paying for a lot of engineers to work on it. 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? One of the more likely candidates for such a project might be 3Ware. Anyone interested in working on 3Ware drivers? -- Alan DuBoff - Solaris x86 Engineering - IHV/OEM Group Advocate of insourcing at Sun - hire people that care about our company! ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Community participation
On Tuesday 30 January 2007 08:37 pm, Artem Kachitchkine wrote: Do the community contributors feel at home here? I don't think so. I see Sun's process as being very intimidating. While many of the other open source communities are bold, they're somehow more welcoming. I see OpenSolaris as being intimidating for the average community member. Do they feel like they own anything there? Like their actions have direct impact and their efforts really paying off? Probably depends on who you talk to and/or how they're involved with Solaris/OpenSolaris. It's been hard for the members to be involved with much of the processes. bugster is not open, the ARC cases have only been available as of recent I believe, and there is still no source code management. Would you have the warm fuzzies in those conditions? -- Alan DuBoff - Solaris x86 Engineering - IHV/OEM Group Advocate of insourcing at Sun - hire people that care about our company! ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Community participation
Alan DuBoff wrote: Unlike OpenSolaris, the Linux world has a many corporations paying for work on the kernel, drivers and applications. But Sun has a tremendous amount of engineers working on Solaris, more than any other single company, IMO. I don't dispute that, the fact the Solaris can better Linux in many ways is a strong indicator as to the quality and number of developers at Sun. My point is not so much that more than one company contributes to core Linux, but many companies pay staff to work on Linux derived code, whether it be embedded or PC based. I don't think the community involvement in OpenSolaris will grow until we have more companies willing to pay for work on the project. I don't believe that. And Sun is paying for a lot of engineers to work on it. Again, I think its all of the peripheral work that makes the difference. 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? One of the more likely candidates for such a project might be 3Ware. Anyone interested in working on 3Ware drivers? I would. Ian. ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
Re: [osol-discuss] Community participation
On Tuesday 30 January 2007 11:42 pm, Ian Collins wrote: I don't dispute that, the fact the Solaris can better Linux in many ways is a strong indicator as to the quality and number of developers at Sun. My point is not so much that more than one company contributes to core Linux, but many companies pay staff to work on Linux derived code, whether it be embedded or PC based. This is no different than Sun paying staff that works on OpenSolaris, and Sun has open sourced more code than any other single company. One of the more likely candidates for such a project might be 3Ware. Anyone interested in working on 3Ware drivers? I would. Let me see what I can find out, I've talked to them a couple times. It might be possible to get some hardware and help with specs as well. Do you have a particular chipset of theirs that interest you? -- Alan DuBoff - Solaris x86 Engineering - IHV/OEM Group Advocate of insourcing at Sun - hire people that care about our company! ___ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
