On Thursday 17 March 2005 01:26, Ian Lynch wrote: > On Thu, 2005-03-17 at 03:50, Christian Einfeldt wrote: > > The question, though, is do those projects have enough hackers? > > Or, actually, the question is, do we have enough non-Sun > > hackers, and if not, why not, and what can we do about it. > > My solution is to develop a revenue stream so we can pay hackers > to do development work and educate kids as to how to become a > hacker.
In his interview for the Digital Tipping Point film, Larry Augustin predicted that it will become more and more common for kids to develop hacking skills. > > > > Have you considered the fact that OOo's organizational > > > structure makes it so hard for them to give back? > > > > I can see your point here, and I have always actually agreed > > with you on this point. My question has always been, what > > exactly is broken, and how can it be fixed. > > The main issue is that Sun's corporate culture is based on > control. If you want anything done it has to go through Sun > Legal. So this filters down to the project. Its why the website, > for example, is more difficult to contribute to than say > Wikipedia. Getting code into the system is a notch higher. +1 > > > Generally, it is my impression > > that we need to deal with Sun and other corporations more than > > other projects, for example, Apache. Corporations are often > > slow moving beasts, and the problem with corporate governance > > is a topic of scholarly research unto itself. I actually am > > not at all a scholar of corporate governance, and so I find > > myself at sea in these discussions. I agree that it would be > > desireable to have more flexibility, but exactly how we achieve > > that in the case of OOo is tricky. > snip > So to me we are stuck with Sun and the > current status until someone comes a long with the resources to > either force them to change or to take over. +1 > I have nothing > against Sun. They did a great job getting OOo started even if > some of their execs don't get it. This is more just an objective > assessment of the way things are. +1 Plus, IMHO it is important to give the devil his due. Sun has done a great job of open sourcing OOo, and they have created a decent and powerful office suite. I hope that people will pay attention to this statement: OOo is going to BRING MICROSOFT DOWN. Just at it was unimaginable in 1870 that Western Union could be beaten, and just as it was imaginable in 1960 that RCA could be beaten, so too it is today unimaginable that Microsoft will be humbled by open source, BUT THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN. So let's please first marginalize Microsoft before fine tuning OOo's governance. Of course it is vital to have folks like Daniel moving to get greater openness in OOo governance, but we don't want Daniel and other with his vision and passion to get burned out when they don't achieve all of their goals this year or next. I do think that Microsoft's market capitalization in 2008 will be about 67% of this year's market capitalization, but that is still three years away. In the meantime, we have some serious ass-kicking to do, and we can't do it without Sun! > > > > > If you think that I am advocating "accepting that those in > > > > authority know best", I can understand your point. Merely > > > > accepting authority does not result in a robust open source > > > > project. > > > > > > But that is what you are perceived to advocate. > > > > I can see that Bruce and Enrique and you and probably several > > others have that perception, so I am glad that we are having > > this discussion, because that is not my intention or my own > > perception of myself. In fact, I recall when I first came to > > this list, Sam Hiser once bawled me out for being too left > > wing! So now it's kinda funny that I am being viewed the > > opposite way. Heh. > > Christian, you are a diplomat. What you do is very valuable. Thanks, that sure is nice to hear! > You > try and keep people working together and you judge that to be > more important than your personal political views. Thanks again, and that is true. We need to pick out battles. Thing one right now is commoditizing Windows and Office, IMHO. Of course, one doesn't want to ignore the wishes of the minority, because the measure of a democratic group is how well it treats the minority, and what mechanisms are in place to include the minority view in outcomes. How we will achieve that, of course, is very tricky, and certainly beyond my wisdom, which is another reason that I don't criticize our leads more. Frankly, I think that they are better at what they do than what I could do! I do understand a few things, such as the importance of openness, and I have read lots of business stuff about FLOSS, but organizational governance is an area where I am very poorly read, and have little experience. > I have great > symapthy with this because we need to keep going warts and all +1 > > > Generally speaking the forces of central control are winning in > > the US, and here I am speaking of neither a left-right > > argument, nor a Democrat-Republican argument, but I'm repeating > > Larry Lessig's concerns about the Microsoft-Disney-Comcast > > drive for nothing less than perfect control of all three layers > > of the Internet. > > Fortunately these are global issues and a number of countries > don't seem to agree with the US perspective. Yes, and that is going to come out in the Digital Tipping Point film. I literally think that the US has abandoned much of the high ground in the area of freedom in cyberspace, and the rest of the world is going to save our butts here in the US. DMCA. Broadcast flag. That is seriously negative stuff. I mean, think about it. I can't watch my own purchased videos on my own Linux computers! How insane is that! > > But on an international scale, FLOSS is winning, and even in > > the US, the foundation is being laid for a digital tipping > > point, and I very much want us to win that contest. > > And the end justifies the means. Let's not shoot ourselves in the > foot by reducing the effectiveness of OOo. OOo is the killer app > for getting FLOSS to win. Sun really have let the genie out of > the bottle and not them nor M$ can put it back. They might create > the odd gale and disrupt the Genie - I'd expect them too - when > it does things they don't like but in the end our solidarity will > make this thing work and the more we stick together the quicker > it will happen. +1 If Christensen is correct, and if FLOSS is a disruptive technology, the weight of history is behind us and disfavors Microsoft's business model as it currently stands. > > To the extent that I appear willing to accept the opinions of > > the leads in this project, I believe that appearance is based > > on my sense from personal interaction with them that they have > > those skills. If I side with our leads, it is because, on the > > whole, I believe that they have the right mix of skills to > > balance the community's demands for openness with the corporate > > desire for predictability and control. But I don't think that > > attitude means that I am not interested in using my own > > independent judgment to assess whether our leads are doing a > > good job or not. I have never thought of myself as a kiss-ass > > or a brown-noser or a suck-up or a yes-man, and I don't think > > my comments on this list change my view of myself in that > > regard. > > The bottom line is that if the leads are that damaging, campaign > to replace them. +1 I am very much in favor of Daniel and whoever else is critical of our leads to demand an election and see if we as a group would like a change in leadership. Even if there is no change in leadership, perhaps the process of the election itself will be a mechanism for policy change. I am hearing Daniel and Bruce and Jean and Diane Mackay and other express discontent with the direction of the project, and so I would encourage the dissenters to try to organize formal change, if that is what they would like. Regardless of the mechanism, I do believe that it is important that they feel as if their voices have been heard, and that they have been given a shot at governing. Daniel is already on the community council, and so he should try to use his office to organize political change. But I think that the minority should also expect to be able to carry the burden of persuasion, to borrow a term from the law, because IMHO the burden rests with them to generate the political will within the group to achieve the change they desire.
