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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>I would like to get some comments on a phenomenon I have
discovered among the OpenJUMP community. I know for sure of one (1) company
that maintains a separate fork of OpenJUMP, but which monitors our mailing list
and likely grabs patches form our source code repository. They never
participate in the forums or make known their use of OpenJUMP in any other
public manner.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>I think there is at least one other company that does this.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>I only learn of these companies when I am contacted by
private e-mail to work for them on OpenJUMP development, usually by some
headhunter. I actually did a little work for one of these companies (which was
not a great experience, but that is another story) and I was surprised at how
important OpenJUMP was to their operation. They even distributed it to their
customers.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why this
company wouldn’t take a more active role in supporting the OpenJUMP
community. I’m not necessarily talking about money here, but about
writing documentation, contributing their own patches, or answering questions
on the mailing lists. Our community is very informal and open, and an
organization could likely have a large influence on the direction the program
took with an investment of some resources.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Is OpenJUMP the only community with these open source
lurkers? How many of these companies do you think there are? (I’m not talking
about one guy who downloads an open source app and uses it. I’m talking
about actual companies with more than one employee.)<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Why don’t they get more involved? Are they embarrassed?
Do they not want their competition to find out about the open source program
they are benefiting from? Are they violating the terms of the license and don’t
want to get busted? Do they not understand that their involvement is a key part
of the program’s survival?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>This has become an important question for me recently as the
active development of OpenJUMP has slowed. We don’t have any
organizations actively participating in development. (Well, maybe one or two,
but they have been quiet lately.) I’m the only one working on serious
improvements or changes, and not just bug fixes. I would really like to reach
out to these lurkers to get them more involved. Ultimately, the survival of the
project may depend on it.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>What do you think? Send an e-mail to the project list with
an invitation to contact me privately about getting more involved? Are these
lurkers worth the time?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Landon<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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