On Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 10:24 PM, <robert_w...@us.ibm.com> wrote: > "William A. Rowe Jr." <wr...@rowe-clan.net> wrote on 06/02/2011 03:22:24 > PM: > >> > On 02/06/2011 16:22, Jim Jagielski wrote: >> >> >> >> The initial list has grown and I expect it to continue to; up >> >> until it was announced, no one new about it, so it was kinda >> >> impossible to get a more comprehensive list. Now that people >> >> do know about it, people are signing on. >> > >> > "IBM plans to commit new project members and individual >> contributors from its global >> > development team to strengthen the project and ensure its future >> success." [1] >> >> I have two remaining concerns with this statement. >> > > . > . > . > >> >> Corporate assignments are notorious at the ASF for disappearing >> communities. Sometimes, there is momentum to keep going, often >> times there is not. Communities are based on individuals. > > And individuals are often employed by corporations, and are their jobs > sometimes entail contributing to open source communities. I think we all > understand how this works. > > But do you have any hard numbers, for example, showing a higher > abandonment rate for projects with more corporate assignments? That would > be an interesting correlation to show. Of course, we must also consider > the projects that never came into existence at all, for lack of corporate > sponsorship. That number is harder to estimate.
I can confirm that is is a common enough phenomenon to warrant highlighting in the standard template: http://incubator.apache.org/guides/proposal.html#template-reliance-on-salaried-developers > And just because corporate withdrawals are "notorious" does not mean they > are common, or that they are the greatest risk we should consider. The > Boston Strangler and Jack the Ripper were also notorious, but you have a > great risk of death falling down stairs. > > > . > . > . > >> And should IBM choose in the near or far future to divest itself >> from an OOo community, in the pattern of Harmony, is it willing to >> make a statement that its employees will not be discouraged from >> ongoing participation /on their own time/, again if this is their >> personal interest? >> > > As you know, a requirement for graduation from incubation is that the > podling demonstrate an "open and diverse community". The guidelines state > the one aspect of this requirement as, "there is no single company or > entity that is vital to the success of the project ". > > http://incubator.apache.org/guides/graduation.html#community > > So I think your own guidelines specify the expected outcome in the case a > corporate sponsor withdraws. s/your/our/ > To your other point, IBM has Open Source Participation Guidelines that > generally permit and encourage employee to participate in open source > projects. But there are restrictions and exceptions, to protect IBM, but > also to protect the open source projects, from IP contamination. Every > case is reviewed individually. You can't make any blanket statement, > especially to a hypothetical. > > >> So far, this proposal appears to be the effort of two individuals >> on behalf of two corporations, with some great enthusiam from others. >> All recognize that any resulting project at the Apache Software >> Foundation would be the effort of individuals, not companies per say. >> So these two answers would go a long way to ensure that the long term >> project health is not beholden to Oracle's absence, or any threat of >> withdrawal by IBM. >> > > Certainly the proposal was drafted by few. Now it is being reviewed by > more. And I hope the project will have participation by many., We're > moving in the right direction. - Sam Ruby P.S. Full disclosure: ASF Board member and IBM employee --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscr...@incubator.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: general-h...@incubator.apache.org
