On Thu, Mar 7, 2013 at 6:54 AM, Bruce Bannerman <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:bruce.bannerman.osgeo@gmail.com" target="_blank">bruce.bannerman.osgeo@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr"><div>*****</div><div>Does OSGeo provide clear guidance as to what is acceptable commercial involvement within an OSGeo project?<br>
</div><div>*****<br><br></div><div>Where do we draw the line on what is considered acceptable involvement?<br></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>My 2 cents:</div><div>- scenario 1 and 2 are totally fine</div><div>
- scenario 3 is fine as well, it would be nice if branch B was public so that others</div><div> could decide to complete the merge, but how do you control that?</div><div> Also, integrating with the community has indeed a cost (reviews, discussion,</div>
<div> need to bend what you need to do with the larger community), if the customer is</div><div> not ok with paying for it, what do you do, give up the work? </div><div> That's fine if you have plenty other, but if you don't, well, at the end of the month</div>
<div> you still have to pay salaries no?</div><div>- scenario 4 is not fine, because it seems there is no way for someone from outside</div><div> of the organisation to get at the same level as those who work for it.</div>
<div> However, the incubation rules demanding for a diversity of entities in the development</div><div> and control group should at least partially prevent this kind of situation from the start.</div><div> A situation in which the company has a very important position that scares the rest</div>
<div> of the PSC from duplicating their "added value commercial extras" is indeed a nasty</div><div> one... not very fond of dual licensed situations myself, however a situation in which</div><div> the commercial version keeps ahead by continuously adding new features and</div>
<div> eventually donating a few old ones back to the community, and not discouraging people </div><div> from duplicating them in the open does not bother me, what would bother me greatly</div><div> is a situation in which the commercial version is pretty much stale, and the </div>
<div> company does whatever it can to keep the open source version at bay to avoid</div><div> the advantage of the commercial version to be eroded.</div><div> You want the commercial advantage, fine, you work in order to keep your package</div>
<div> ahead of the curve and leave the open source version evolve as it sees fit.</div><div><br></div><div>Generally speaking I would not put the question in terms of "how much commercial </div><div>involvement there is", but more of "is there a set of rules that are equals for everybody,</div>
<div>and that allow new contributors to raise their rank up to PSC level if their work qualifies</div><div>them to get there?".</div><div>Also the community should be sane and lively, in particular if the eventual company</div>
<div>that released the software to open source moves on and stops actively contributing to the project,</div><div>its control position should diminish accordingly, going from active PSC member to</div><div>emeritus. In other terms, "we are very grateful for your past work, but today you're not relevant</div>
<div>anymore".</div><div><br></div><div>The extreme opposite is situation where everybody is allowed to do what their please,</div><div>however such a project should not be allowed to incubate or complete incubation</div>
<div>in my opinion, as it's still too much in an anarchic state and has not yet reached any</div><div>kind of control over how things are done and the quality of what it's producing.</div><div><br></div><div>Cheers</div>
<div>Andrea</div><div> </div></div><div><br></div>-- <br><div>==</div><div>Our support, Your Success! Visit <a href="http://opensdi.geo-solutions.it" target="_blank">http://opensdi.geo-solutions.it</a> for more information.</div>
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