There are several benefits to the Apache Organization, I can list a few here:
1) The Apache Software Foundation is an established non-profit 501(c) (3) corporation. As such it can provide a legal entity that can facilitate tax deductible financial contributions to a project. Right now with the project simply hosted at Google Code, there would be no real way for us to accept donations. 2) They protect the contributors from legal suits. Basically, if some one uses wave and incurs some damages, they can sue apache and the individual contributors / committers are legally shielded from that suit. 3) Apache will protect its brand and enforce the license. Again if some one doesn't play by the copyright rules governing the open source project Apache can take legal action on the projects behalf. 4) Apache has hardware infrastructure like project web site hosting, issue tracking, wikis, mailing lists, etc as well as a large mirrored content distribution network. 5) The Apache Brand name is strong, we will benefit from being associated with them. If we graduate to a Top Level Project, then it says to the rest of the world that we are at a certain maturity. This is not an inclusive list, but some of the major benefits. As for the risks, you do give up some control over how the project is governed. Apache runs projects as a meritocracy / democracy. There is no hierarchy of project owners and various levels of committers. This it self isn't bad or good, just pointing out that they have rules that projects have to play by. I personally like how they do things, but the point is that we have to bend to their will somewhat. Another related risks is we are somewhat beholden to their infrastructure. So for example they use Subversion for source control. Again we have to just go with the flow. We MUST use the Apache license for the code, and we can't ever "take the code back". Of course with the apache license if we wanted to we could always fork the project and move it somewhere else, but we can't ever revoke the license form apache. Basically, the idea here is that we are joining a community and by doing so are agreeing to transform our project to fit their existing model. Of course when we are an active member of that community we will get a voice in how the larger community operates. As for the alternatives, we could just leave the project where it is at google code, or move to something like source forge. The down side here is we don't get the legal or organizational protections that apache provides, nor do we get the brand name benefits. Michael On Dec 1, 2:59 am, Vega <[email protected]> wrote: > I was closely following the discussion regarding wave in a box product > joining Apache. However, I couldn't see any real benefits to join > besides having "Apache" before the "Wave". I guess the "pros and cons" > discussions were held at the summit, but I couldn't access them. > I am not against the move, it's just I am not sure I understand the > consequences and the price. > So > 1. What are potential benefits? Are there things that Apache can > provide that will make the work of wane in a box developers easier? > 2. What are possible risks? I guess everything comes at price and > joining Apache will impose certain restrictions. What are them? > 3. Are there some alternatives? Maybe there are better ways to achieve > the same goal. > > Thanks -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Wave Protocol" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/wave-protocol?hl=en.
