[Incubator] Acceptable commercial involvement in OSGeo Projects

Thu Mar 7 21:53:35 PST 2013

Thanks to all who contributed for your thoughts.

I think that Andrea and Jody hit the nail on the head with their summaries:

i.e. from Andrea:

"Generally speaking I would not put the question in terms of "how much
commercial
involvement there is", but more of "is there a set of rules that are equals
for everybody,
and that allow new contributors to raise their rank up to PSC level if
their work qualifies
them to get there?".
Also the community should be sane and lively, in particular if the eventual
company
that released the software to open source moves on and stops actively
contributing to the project,
its control position should diminish accordingly, going from active PSC
member to
emeritus. In other terms, "we are very grateful for your past work, but
today you're not relevant
anymore". "

i.e from Jody:

"The only exception to this is during incubation (when we have a mentor
available to answer questions) and some specific checks to perform (check
the IP, check that the license is open, check that the development process
is open to outsiders)."

=======

Therefore to summarise:

OSGeo, through the Incubation process seeks to ensure that graduated OSGeo
projects:

* are open for contributions from interested developers.
* have an open process for evaluating contributions and deciding what
proposed change goes into each version.
* have an open project governance structure, where any developer can be
selected to become involved in PSC or
  similar through their interest, project performance and merit.
* are not controlled by a single entity.

=======

Again quoting Jody:

"If the project does not have a useful model for commercial involvement I
would expect it to suffer, if it does not have a useful model for community
engagement (say the original JUMP) I would expect it to fail (or be forked).
"

Are there any comments on my summary above?

Bruce

On Fri, Mar 8, 2013 at 10:56 AM, Jody Garnett <jody.garnett at gmail.com>wrote:

>  I think the MapGuide and FDO projects went through a similar story - with
> the community duplicating functionality. I wonder if we have a
> representative who can talk us through how that worked out? This would only
> be for interest sake, as we may be able to learn from their experience.
>
> Duplication does happen: for GeoServer we have two implementations of
> netCDF support on the horizon. We depend on our architecture, and project
> policies, to allow two "community plugins" to be developed by different
> teams. While we can encourage developers to work together it is VERY rare
> for it happen (as each has different sponsors, goals and deadlines).
>
> While I hate to see duplicated effort, it is completely understandable.
> --
> Jody Garnett
>
> On Friday, 8 March 2013 at 10:37 AM, Peter Baumann wrote:
>
>  Hi all,
>
> allow me to chime in. First, thanks to Bruce for abstracting from the case
> by fleshing out these variations, and to all for your thoughts!
>
> I'm pretty much in line that #4 is not very desirable, although I'm not
> sure OSGeo should influence - I understand OSGeo more as a project quality
> check, but not as project hypervisor. Usually community is quite aware and
> the situation probably would self-regulate.
>
> Actually, in the concrete case at hand the question was different even
> from scenario #4, aka: Should OSGeo actively encourage contributors in
> dual-license projects to clone commercial functionality? On a side note, in
> the case on hand the commercial player is a key contributor to the
> open-source version, as the commit logs convey; this may or may not be
> relevant.
>
> Of course this situation was not planned, it just surfaced the potential
> issue by coincidence. Consequently, I see no particular severity in it,
> just a useful discussion. My personal preference? Coexistence.
>
> -Peter
>
>
>
> On 03/07/2013 11:52 PM, Jody Garnett wrote:
>
>  OSGeo does not tend to have policies with respect to our projects - the
> organisation is driven by its goals and does its best be "hands off".
>
>  The only exception to this is during incubation (when we have a mentor
> available to answer questions) and some specific checks to perform (check
> the IP, check that the license is open, check that the development process
> is open to outsiders).
>
>  In this respect we are trying to do all the research that an
> "contributor" would require before participating in a project … and ensure
> each OSGeo project is in position to handle new contributors.
>
>  We have never been involved in the business model supporting the
> project, and any related commercial considerations. If the project does not
> have a useful model for commercial involvement I would expect it to suffer,
> if it does not have a useful model for community engagement (say the
> original JUMP) I would expect it to fail (or be forked).
>
>  During incubation we ask that the community be handled with "open
> source" and that contributors be handled with "open development". Beyond
> that (rather low) bar the specifics of how  a project intends to stay
> viable and manage its commercial relationships is outside of our scope.
>
>  I had hoped that the OSGeo Foundation could be part of the solution (a
> reason GeoTools joined the foundation was to pursue funding for thankless
> tasks such as documentation and marketing). The recent board decisions take
> this goal off the table.
> --
>  Jody Garnett
>
>  On Thursday, 7 March 2013 at 4:54 PM, Bruce Bannerman wrote:
>
>   This is a generic question that may help us develop a consistent policy
> to be applied towards projects that we are currently working with and those
> that we may potentially work with in the future.
>
>
> I would appreciate some guidance on what we consider acceptable commercial
> involvement within an OSGeo project.
>
>  To start this discussion off, I will propose a set of scenarios to help
> start and guide the conversation.
>
>  These are but four scenarios. There are of course a continuum of
> variations to these.
>
>
> *****
>  Does OSGeo provide clear guidance as to what is acceptable commercial
> involvement within an OSGeo project?
>  *****
>
>  Where do we draw the line on what is considered acceptable involvement?
>
>  Bruce
>
>
> =================
> Scenario 1
>
>  Organisation X is interested in furthering the development of project A.
> The involvement is:
>
>  * X allows staff to work on project A
>  * staff contribute work to project
>  * staff are assigned commit access
>  * staff work within project processes and Project Steering Committee
> (PSC) to
>   ensure that contributed work is assigned a priority release date
>  * staff integrate work with rest of project code, provide automated
> tests etc
>
>
>
> ==================
>  Scenario 2
>
>  Organisation Y offers commercial services based on project B.
>
>  * Y contracts staff to develop functionality on behalf of a client G
>  * contract requires G to contribute software back to project B
> * Y staff integrate work with rest of project code, provide automated
> tests etc
>  * Y has both commit rights and staff on PSC and ensure that work is
>   prioritised for an early release.
>
>
>
> ==================
>  Scenario 3
>
> Same organisation Y offers commercial services based on same project B.
>
>  * Y contracts staff to develop functionality on behalf of a client H
>  * contract does not allow Y to contribute software back to project B
> * Y staff delivers software to client H as a standalone branch of B
>  * Y will only integrate above work to project B if paid a fee.
>
>
> ==================
>  Scenario 4
>
>  Organisation Z releases their previously proprietary software as an Open
> Source project under a GPL Licence. This becomes Project C.
>
>  * Z also releases the software under dual licensing, with a commercial
>   closed source version containing more advanced functionality than
>   the open source version
>  * Project C attracts a number of developers
>  * Z retains control of PSC and discourages developers from adding the
>   functionality found in the closed source version to the open source
> version
>  * if a developer does submit such functionality, it is ranked by the PSC
>    as low priority and is never released within the open source version.
>
>  ==================
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>
> --
> Dr. Peter Baumann
>  - Professor of Computer Science, Jacobs University Bremen
>    www.faculty.jacobs-university.de/pbaumann
>    mail: p.baumann at jacobs-university.de
>    tel: +49-421-200-3178, fax: +49-421-200-493178
>  - Executive Director, rasdaman GmbH Bremen (HRB 26793)
>    www.rasdaman.com, mail: baumann at rasdaman.com
>    tel: 0800-rasdaman, fax: 0800-rasdafax, mobile: +49-173-5837882
> "Si forte in alienas manus oberraverit hec peregrina epistola incertis ventis dimissa, sed Deo commendata, precamur ut ei reddatur cui soli destinata, nec preripiat quisquam non sibi parata." (mail disclaimer, AD 1083)
>
>
>
>
>
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