epiphany about the idea of the Foundation

[Gary Lang]

You know, we did something simple to allow us to contribute the code to
it, so let me check. The idea was to set it up and give it to the
foundation. 

What needs to happen is for a structure to be set up to discuss
governance, etc. and then a voting scheme so that members can elect the
real board.

I will say this: we make decisions fast, but I am quite sensitive to the
community aspects of all this, and so have tried hard to accommodate the
fact that the community wasn't involved yet, and so nothing is set in
stone.

This is all chicken-egg stuff. I would ask the community not to read
nefarious schemes into this. No one has a lot of experience in this
process, that I can see.

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 7:21 PM
To: MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU
Subject: Re: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] epiphany about the idea of the
Foundation

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