epiphany about the idea of the Foundation

[Allan Doyle]

On Nov 29, 2005, at 17:10, Gary Lang wrote:

> " Having been a CTO and VP of Marketing for more than one public
> software
> company, I respectfully disagree.  You are now, after all,  
> brainstorming
> and asking questions on a public mailing list without benefit of an
> NDA."
>
> Everything we're talking about is public knowledge now, and the  
> code has
> been contributed to the foundation. It's a different situation.
>
> " Not every action taken by a public company is a material event that
> impacts its stock price"
>
> Yes but you never know which one will, and your shareholders would
> consider it careless to leave the impressions of where you are going
> when brainstorming to chance. Putting a major product that we're  
> making
> an ongoing investment was considered a major event in our lawyer's
> minds. This then leads to all kinds of questions - "what else are you
> going to make available for free?" was one that came up, and there  
> were
> many more that we had to have clear answers for yesterday.
>
> Neither of us is a lawyer, I'll bet.
>
> Anyone in my shoes needs to have answers available and we had none  
> until
> we figured out what we were going to do. Maybe we're too careful but
> that was our approach.
>
> " If Autodesk is a voting member of the Foundation, will you again
> expect another NDA every time you have a discussion that might affect
> the "MapServer Enterprise" product?"
>
> In a word, no. It's in the community's hands now, not ours.
>
> " The only reason you needed to disclose any Autodesk code was because
> the
> inclusion of that code in the MapServer Foundation was a  
> precondition of
> your support.  "
>
> Not true, it has to be downloadable by everybody within a legal
> framework that protects it but removes it from our control. Without
> these two things in place, who would be interested in it?

OpenMap was released by a subsidiary of a public company (BBN, part  
of GTE at the time) and was and is still maintained by developers at  
BBN (now a private company again). I think there are gray areas that  
are open to interpretation by the company lawyers. If the company's  
lawyers are geared up for secrecy/non-disclosure, then that's the  
kind of response you will get from them in every circumstance.

There are probably many instances of corporate-hosted open source out  
there.

However, your answer was a non-sequitor. The statement was that  
Autodesk need not have put the order as 1a. release code, 1b.  
announce foundation where both happened at once. The order could have  
been 1. announce foundation, 2. release code later.

In fact, the foundation does not yet exist from what I can tell by  
reading the materials released so far. In order to form a 501c3, you  
have to first incorporate a non-profit in a given state, then apply  
to the IRS for status as a public charity. That takes time. At best,  
it would take a month to get the corporation set up, and another  
month (but more like 6 months) to get the public charity status.

So, in fact, the order legally is 1. release code to a web site whose  
domain name is owned by Gary Lang, private citizen (and which has  
three IP addresses in New York and Switzerland), and 2. gear up to  
form the legal entity that's a foundation.

But I don't think it makes sense to quibble over details. It makes  
sense to discuss the broader effect and how to best deal with it.  
Always go for the high-order bit. The rest is just noise (at least  
until you dealt with the big stuff).

	Allan



>
> Gary
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ed McNierney [mailto:ed at topozone.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2005 1:57 PM
> To: Gary Lang; MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU
> Subject: RE: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] epiphany about the idea of the
> Foundation
>
> Gary -
>
> Having been a CTO and VP of Marketing for more than one public  
> software
> company, I respectfully disagree.  You are now, after all,  
> brainstorming
> and asking questions on a public mailing list without benefit of an  
> NDA.
> Not every action taken by a public company is a material event that
> impacts its stock price, and public companies have all kinds of people
> saying all kinds of things all over the place without NDAs.  If  
> Autodesk
> is a voting member of the Foundation, will you again expect another  
> NDA
> every time you have a discussion that might affect the "MapServer
> Enterprise" product?
>
> The only reason you needed to disclose any Autodesk code was  
> because the
> inclusion of that code in the MapServer Foundation was a  
> precondition of
> your support.  It was certainly possible for Autodesk to support a
> MapServer Foundation and THEN - after the Foundation was constituted -
> propose the contribution of that code to the Foundation.  The  
> Foundation
> management could have authorized a technical subcommittee to sign  
> an NDA
> with Autodesk in order to evaluate that proposed contribution.
>
> You're confusing Autodesk's MapGuide product with the MapServer
> Foundation, and that's the primary source of the problem.  The  
> MapServer
> community needs a foundation dedicated to the stewardship of  
> MapServer,
> and Autodesk is looking for a product and marketing strategy for its
> MapGuide product.  Those are both fine goals, but they're completely
> different goals.  I think Autodesk's behavior has been perfectly
> reasonable for a commercial software company trying to design a path
> forward for one of its products.  It is the endorsement and  
> acquiescence
> to that strategy by a subset of the MapServer community - in the  
> absence
> of an effort to investigate alternatives - that I object to.
>
> 	- Ed
>
> Ed McNierney
> President and Chief Mapmaker
> TopoZone.com / Maps a la carte, Inc.
> 73 Princeton Street, Suite 305
> North Chelmsford, MA  01863
> ed at topozone.com
> (978) 251-4242
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gary Lang [mailto:gary.lang at autodesk.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2005 4:34 PM
> To: Ed McNierney; MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU
> Subject: RE: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] epiphany about the idea of the
> Foundation
>
> Sure. It's pretty straightforward.
>
> We are a public company. We make money from MapGuide. We weren't sure
> what we were going to do and had questions to answer:
>
> 1) open source or not
> 2) can we work with the MS community or not and to see if our code was
> interesting enough to it to work with them on it
> 3)
>
> A public company cannot brainstorm or ask questions like this on a
> public mailing list. We also could not just show our code without an
> NDA. It's simply not legally allowed. So our choice was:
>
> 1) go it alone, and effectively compete with MS from day one of our
> announcements which would then have said "use MapGuide, not  
> MapServer",
> don't consult with anyone, etc. That wasn't appealing after we met  
> with
> Frank, Daniel, Paul, Dave and I talked to Steve.
>
> 2) try to explore, through the only means of exploration available to
> us, what we could do by working with the community. The means  
> available
> to us were NDAs to disclose the code and brainstorm on the idea of
> working together.
>
> The Apache guys had a similar situation when approach by IBM. It  
> worked
> out well for Apache and IBM, and our goal is for this to work out well
> for the current MapServer and Autodesk as well.
>
> This wasn't about control. It is more a lack of control - we were not
> legally allowed to approach the exploration in any other way. Now that
> there is a legal foundation and it has the code and the code's out
> there, we can talk. It's that simple.
>
> Gary
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ed McNierney [mailto:ed at topozone.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2005 1:21 PM
> To: Gary Lang; MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU
> Subject: RE: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] epiphany about the idea of the
> Foundation
>
> Gary -
>
> "Involving other companies is actually something I have been clear I
> wanted to do from the outset"
> "we'd be incredibly stupid to help establish a foundation in which
> Autodesk or any other corporate entity has "control""
>
> Can you explain, then, why Autodesk insisted that everyone  
> participating
> in this process sign non-disclosure agreements with Autodesk?  That
> process seems designed to ensure that Autodesk had control, and
> prevented the involvement of other companies.
>
> 	- Ed
>
> Ed McNierney
> President and Chief Mapmaker
> TopoZone.com / Maps a la carte, Inc.
> 73 Princeton Street, Suite 305
> North Chelmsford, MA  01863
> ed at topozone.com
> (978) 251-4242
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: UMN MapServer Users List [mailto:MAPSERVER- 
> USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU] On
> Behalf Of Gary Lang
> Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2005 2:45 PM
> To: MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU
> Subject: Re: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] epiphany about the idea of the
> Foundation
>
> Hi Gary,
>
> Gary from Autodesk here.
>
> I am doing this as we speak. In fact I started making my first calls
> about 2 weeks ago. I just got a call from one 2 minutes ago from  
> someone
> at one those companies and they are interested in discussing what it
> would mean to join.
>
> Involving other companies is actually something I have been clear I
> wanted to do from the outset. Since I'm good acquaintances with my  
> peers
> at most of those companies and had hinted at our open source  
> intentions
> before with some of them, I am hopeful they will join us in this
> adventure based on initial interest.
>
> Now, let me ask people here something, in my mind, if someone wants to
> join the foundation, they should contribute something to the  
> foundation
> or agree to either support or use MapServer in their products, though.
> What do you think? And to be clear, I wouldn't care which code base  
> they
> wanted to use.
>
> I will address your comments about foundation control in another  
> email.
> Suffice it to say that we'd be incredibly stupid to help establish a
> foundation in which Autodesk or any other corporate entity has  
> "control"
> - who would want to contribute their work if we did that? We wouldn't.
>
> Gary
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: UMN MapServer Users List [mailto:MAPSERVER- 
> USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU] On
> Behalf Of Gary Watry
> Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2005 11:30 AM
> To: MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU
> Subject: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] epiphany about the idea of the  
> Foundation
>
> Being as this is a non-profit open source Foundation, I hope that we
> will ask the other commercial Internet map software companies to join
> the Foundation in the same manner as AutoDesk.
>
> This should include ESRI, Integraph, Microstation, MapInfo,  
> DeLorme, etc
> etc
>
> Anyone who has a vested interest in Internet Mapping should be  
> asked to
> contribute and participate. If they opt not to - fine - but then they
> are on record for choosing not to play
>
> But then the contributors could insure their other products were
> compatible with MapServer(OS) and that it was compatible with their
> products.
>
> The two fold benefit to this is
> 1. the foundation will not be concieved as a partner to Autodesk 2.
> Autodesk or no other Commercial company will control the Foundation
>
> ______________________________________________________________
> Gary L. Watry
>
> GIS Coordinator
> Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies FSU / COAPS Johnson
> Building, RM 215
> 2035 East Paul Dirac Drive
> Tallahassee, Florida 32306-2840
>
> E-Mail: watry at coaps.fsu.edu
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: UMN MapServer Users List [mailto:MAPSERVER- 
> USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU] On
> Behalf Of Lester Caine
> Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2005 2:06 PM
> To: MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU
> Subject: Re: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] current OS license
>
> Charlton Purvis wrote:
>
>> Hi, folks:
>>
>> Although there continues to be an open source spirit surrounding the
> code
>> amid the launch of a MS Foundation, I'd like to ask for clarification
> re.
>> the license of the MS code as it stands now.
>>
>> If for whatever reason a company like Autodesk (or I guess it would
> have
> to
>> be the Foundation) wanted to slap some kind of non-open source  
>> license
> on
>> the code, is it true that the current code we call MapServer in its
> current
>> state will always remain covered under the license below?  Basically
> I'm
>> trying to make sure that a shop can't somehow repossess something  
>> that
> was
>> originally OS thus preventing folks from using it like it's being  
>> used
> now.
>
> Borland tried it with Interbase, but Firebird is now freely available
> and there is not a lot Borland can now do about it ;) I am sure  
> Autocad
> have a 'hidden agenda' but as long as there are free versions of what
> ever is needed to provide a working system then there will not be a
> problem. Anything commercial will have to be worth the money to  
> make any
> sales :)
>
> p.s. I am not seeing my posts to the list so if you get this Charlton
> and it's not on the list please can you forward it :(
>
> --
> Lester Caine
> -----------------------------
> L.S.Caine Electronic Services
> Treasurer - Firebird Foundation Inc.
>

-- 
Allan Doyle
+1.781.433.2695
adoyle at eogeo.org