epiphany about the idea of the Foundation

[Allan Doyle]

If the foundation was incorporated, then there must be articles of  
incorporation (or a similar legal document) and bylaws. And there is  
probably a 501c3 application in the works.

Are those available for viewing?

	Allan

On Nov 29, 2005, at 17:56, Gary Lang wrote:

> Allan,
>
> A couple of points.
>
> 1) The main difference here may be that OpenMap started life as a
> government-sponsored open source project, not a commercial project  
> by a
> public software company. You are probably correct in saying that our
> lawyers are careful.
>
> 2) The foundation was created two weeks ago, and is incorporated in
> Delaware.
>
> We thought, and I'm sure if folks think we made a mistake they'll tell
> us, that announcing this and having no code available for download  
> would
> raise lots of criticism. Instead we are getting all kinds of people
> downloading and playing with the software, even though the official
> download site won't go up until January.
>
> Gary
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: UMN MapServer Users List [mailto:MAPSERVER- 
> USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU] On
> Behalf Of Allan Doyle
> Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2005 2:35 PM
> To: MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU
> Subject: Re: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] epiphany about the idea of the
> Foundation
>
> ...
>
> 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
>
>

-- 
Allan Doyle
+1.781.433.2695
adoyle at eogeo.org