Commerce and open-soure (Was) Proposal to join Apache OpenOffice

[Dirk-Willem van Gulik <di...@webweaving.org>]

Having finally caught up with most of the discussion so far - I am wondering if there is a fundamental disconnect between how the various communities model commercial interests and open source.

Perhaps it is fair to surmise that Apache rules of engagement matured during the start of the dot-com boom. And where virtually each and every person involved was there for what I would almost call very 'selfish' reasons[0]. Fierce competitors (on content) easily conceded to collaboration (on technology and open standards). Driven by clear tradeoffs around time-to-market, interoperability or cost. Driven by clear 'win's for the contributors (and not necessarily considering a win-win at both contributor and nascent ASF) as the amplifying force. 

Now above is probably too stark of a caricature - and a lot of people where motivated by a lot more (cool technology, the joy of collaborating and learning, access to smarter people, the challenge) and generally well attuned to the 'lets make the world a slightly better' place of internet engineering dominant in that period.

However I'd still argue that the fact that a lot of people then (and now) were driven by powerful commercial forces became part of the ASF its fabric. And then since then - the  apache community has learned how to work with that.

You may have noticed that above mentions 'people' far more often than companies. 

And that is part of that lesson - Apache tends to work with individuals - who get their 'commit bit' based on merit, based on the opinion of their peers and their visible contributes. As opposed to corporate access or dealing with companies[1].  We trust people.

And unless they specifically state otherwise (and this is rare!), when an Apache member or committer posts on any mailing list - they do it as themselves. It is their personal point-of-view, wearing their personal hat and not as a mouthpiece for whatever company happens to be signing their paying their salary at that point. Likewise - VP's and ASF directors very rarely use their 'hat' - and if they do so - will identify themselves clearly. . And we do see a lot of ASF committers move from company to company - over periods of decades even - loyal to the codebase and apache[2] . Some have even managed to make a full circle.

But none of this makes the ASF a counter balance or a shield for- or from- corporate interests. It just makes it a place where individuals can safely contribute to code, release that code, get the benefit of proven processes and know that they shielded form the usual liabilities. And it makes it a place where anyone, individuals and companies alike - can pick up release - and where they know that their exposure is as it says of the tin.

So this is somewhat in contrast with other possible community structures. Where the collaboration structure _itself_ is there to protect, to shape; or where the contributors and interest sitting at the coding table are companies, rather than people. And where the collaboration structure needs to be strong enough to keep this in check.  Or where strong licenses, like the GPL, are needed to keep certain undesired commercial land grabs at bay.

The ASF its structure, culture and bylaws are simply not conductive to the latter. All it is, can do, is considering to accept a donation (software grant[3]) under very specific terms and then allow a self managing[2] group of individuals who are peers, work on that code within a fairly narrow set of processes[4] following a defined path[5].  And the ASF will only do this when that group of individuals is there. People. Willing to do work.  Only during that first bootstrapping phase is there some help[6] - but beyond that - projects are self manage, self select their PMCs, self propose individuals for commit access and so on.

And I think that this difference in expectation is at the heart of some of the current debates. 

I'd personally expect that the Open Office world - which its sizeable impact on a very commercial enterprise world with expensive demands will need to garner a solid and balanced support ecosystem which is far beyond the ASF - where the free and strong ideological chops of, say, LibreOffice balance commercial product and support companies.

Hope this helps,

Dw.
-- 
Dirk-Willem van Gulik <dirkx(at)webweaving(punto)org>

0: I'll be the first to admit that - though arguably in my case it was research money and getting satellite pictures distributed by other means than faxed request forms and large boxes of tape.
1: In all fairness - we do have Company Contributor License Agreements - partly as to make things easier on the process side for individuals which work in (large) companies. Companies do not contribute code - people do.
2: http://www.apache.org/foundation/how-it-works.html
3: http://www.apache.org/licenses/software-grant.txt
4: http://incubator.apache.org/guides/graduation.html#releases
5: http://incubator.apache.org/incubation/Process_Description.html
6: http://incubator.apache.org/incubation/Roles_and_Responsibilities.html

Re: Commerce and open-soure (Was) Proposal to join Apache OpenOffice

[Dirk-WIllem van Gulik <di...@webweaving.org>]

On 6 Jun 2011, at 18:43, Benson Margulies wrote:

> The expression 'land-grab' in here bothers me.
> 
> I understand (if not agree with) the 'deep philosophy justification'
> of the FSF for a particular licensing strategy.
> 
> I understand the views of individuals who don't want to benefit
> corporations without extracting, at least, some token cooperation in
> return.
> 
> I don't understand the analogy in which code is 'land' which can be
> 'grabbed'. If a corporation takes ALv2 licensed code and uses it to
> launch some close-source thing, the code isn't used up. It's still
> there where anyone else can use it for anything else.

Apologies - what I meant was that there is a fairly fundamental choice in the contract with the wider ecosystem - will you simply allow anyone to do anything* with the code (including forking it, making totally closed/private versions and even distributing these modified versions) ? And let (new) communities morph code and social contracts as they see fit.

Or do you fundamentally as the "owner" feel responsibility towards the 'code' - and grab the moral high ground - and keep some level of control over that - as to ensure that both code and community are viable & benefit long term. And then work very hard (but collectively) from there on.

The ASF does the first (and allows others to do the latter by not 'caring' about that all too much). IMHO the value of some other organizations are in their strength to do the latter.

Or in other words - a small aspect of the wider free beer vs free speech discussion. Or, the one I like better, is one a carpenter - you make a most lovely roof - and do not care about other (builders) building on to your work or owning it in any way - or are you a true artist or architect - caring about your work and the IPR beyond the point it was gifted to an owner.

Dw

*: which can't be called by the original apache project name anymore - and liability shielding applies for the code incorperated.


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Re: Commerce and open-soure (Was) Proposal to join Apache OpenOffice

[Greg Stein <gs...@gmail.com>]

Good one :-)

On Mon, Jun 6, 2011 at 14:11, Donald Whytock <dw...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Actually, "land-grab" isn't an invalid analogy.  Think of a
> mountain...Imagine some enterprising nonprof manages to buy a scenic
> mountain.  A cadre of volunteers sees to it, cleaning up litter and
> the occasional forest fire.  The nonprof opens up the mountain for
> anyone to go play on, as long as they don't unduly damage it.
>
> This doesn't prevent commercial organizations from exploiting the
> mountain.  People might sell mountain t-shirts, mountain pictures,
> mini mountains, mountain tours, mountain bus trips or travel packages,
> rooms in mountain-facing hotels, etc.  There's virtually no limit to
> the amount of mountain-related business that can be conducted...as
> long as the mountain remains untouched.  Because all those businesses
> rely on the mountain being there.
>
> The purpose of the nonprof is to preserve the mountain and keep it
> untouched, or at least reasonably pristine.  As opposed to, say, some
> strip-mining company that would, for its own profit, make the mountain
> go away.
>
> And hey, if people from the surrounding businesses want to come in and
> pick up trash too, more power to 'em.
>
> On Mon, Jun 6, 2011 at 1:53 PM, Phillip Rhodes
> <mo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Mon, Jun 6, 2011 at 1:43 PM, Benson Margulies <bi...@gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>> The expression 'land-grab' in here bothers me.
>>>
>>> I understand (if not agree with) the 'deep philosophy justification'
>>> of the FSF for a particular licensing strategy.
>>>
>>> I understand the views of individuals who don't want to benefit
>>> corporations without extracting, at least, some token cooperation in
>>> return.
>>>
>>> I don't understand the analogy in which code is 'land' which can be
>>> 'grabbed'. If a corporation takes ALv2 licensed code and uses it to
>>> launch some close-source thing, the code isn't used up. It's still
>>> there where anyone else can use it for anything else.
>>>
>>
>> Thanks for saying that... I was thinking about making a similar post, but
>> hadn't quite found time to
>> figure out exactly how to express it.
>>
>> I realize some people interacting in this current discussion may not be
>> long-time participants in ASF
>> projects, and / or may be FSF / Free software ideologues... but I think it's
>> important to realize that the
>> ASF is not the FSF and that the Apache License is written the way it is for
>> a reason, and that it reflects
>> the ideals of the ASF community.  Here, as far as I can tell, it is
>> completely acceptable for an entity
>> (corporation or otherwise) to take Apache licensed code, put it into a
>> proprietary app, and benefit from
>> it commercially.   Yes, the community most likely finds it *desirable* for
>> such an entity to contribute
>> back in kind, but it's not required.  And here, that's just a normal "par
>> for the course" part of the way things
>> work.
>>
>> In short, complaining about what IBM, or any other commercial entity, plans
>> to do with the OOo code, and
>> spending all this energy worrying about IBM's strategy, and criticizing IBM,
>> is not helping this process.
>>
>> The goal here is to get the code into the incubator, and have a healthy,
>> vibrant community emerge that can run
>> a viable project according to the Apache way.  A lot of this discussion
>> strikes me as tangential (at best) to that.
>>
>> None of this is meant to disparage TDF, LibreOffice, or Free/Libre
>> software... but the issues about commercialization
>> of the code that might be crucial in some orgs, are not (as) relevant here.
>>  A healthy, vibrant project is relevant... if
>> IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, Novell, SCO, or Enron decide to use the code for a
>> commercial project, then so be it.
>>
>> All of this is "IMO" of course.
>>
>>
>> Phil
>>
>
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Re: Commerce and open-soure (Was) Proposal to join Apache OpenOffice

[Donald Whytock <dw...@gmail.com>]

Actually, "land-grab" isn't an invalid analogy.  Think of a
mountain...Imagine some enterprising nonprof manages to buy a scenic
mountain.  A cadre of volunteers sees to it, cleaning up litter and
the occasional forest fire.  The nonprof opens up the mountain for
anyone to go play on, as long as they don't unduly damage it.

This doesn't prevent commercial organizations from exploiting the
mountain.  People might sell mountain t-shirts, mountain pictures,
mini mountains, mountain tours, mountain bus trips or travel packages,
rooms in mountain-facing hotels, etc.  There's virtually no limit to
the amount of mountain-related business that can be conducted...as
long as the mountain remains untouched.  Because all those businesses
rely on the mountain being there.

The purpose of the nonprof is to preserve the mountain and keep it
untouched, or at least reasonably pristine.  As opposed to, say, some
strip-mining company that would, for its own profit, make the mountain
go away.

And hey, if people from the surrounding businesses want to come in and
pick up trash too, more power to 'em.

On Mon, Jun 6, 2011 at 1:53 PM, Phillip Rhodes
<mo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 6, 2011 at 1:43 PM, Benson Margulies <bi...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> The expression 'land-grab' in here bothers me.
>>
>> I understand (if not agree with) the 'deep philosophy justification'
>> of the FSF for a particular licensing strategy.
>>
>> I understand the views of individuals who don't want to benefit
>> corporations without extracting, at least, some token cooperation in
>> return.
>>
>> I don't understand the analogy in which code is 'land' which can be
>> 'grabbed'. If a corporation takes ALv2 licensed code and uses it to
>> launch some close-source thing, the code isn't used up. It's still
>> there where anyone else can use it for anything else.
>>
>
> Thanks for saying that... I was thinking about making a similar post, but
> hadn't quite found time to
> figure out exactly how to express it.
>
> I realize some people interacting in this current discussion may not be
> long-time participants in ASF
> projects, and / or may be FSF / Free software ideologues... but I think it's
> important to realize that the
> ASF is not the FSF and that the Apache License is written the way it is for
> a reason, and that it reflects
> the ideals of the ASF community.  Here, as far as I can tell, it is
> completely acceptable for an entity
> (corporation or otherwise) to take Apache licensed code, put it into a
> proprietary app, and benefit from
> it commercially.   Yes, the community most likely finds it *desirable* for
> such an entity to contribute
> back in kind, but it's not required.  And here, that's just a normal "par
> for the course" part of the way things
> work.
>
> In short, complaining about what IBM, or any other commercial entity, plans
> to do with the OOo code, and
> spending all this energy worrying about IBM's strategy, and criticizing IBM,
> is not helping this process.
>
> The goal here is to get the code into the incubator, and have a healthy,
> vibrant community emerge that can run
> a viable project according to the Apache way.  A lot of this discussion
> strikes me as tangential (at best) to that.
>
> None of this is meant to disparage TDF, LibreOffice, or Free/Libre
> software... but the issues about commercialization
> of the code that might be crucial in some orgs, are not (as) relevant here.
>  A healthy, vibrant project is relevant... if
> IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, Novell, SCO, or Enron decide to use the code for a
> commercial project, then so be it.
>
> All of this is "IMO" of course.
>
>
> Phil
>

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Re: Commerce and open-soure (Was) Proposal to join Apache OpenOffice

[Phillip Rhodes <mo...@gmail.com>]

On Mon, Jun 6, 2011 at 1:43 PM, Benson Margulies <bi...@gmail.com>wrote:

> The expression 'land-grab' in here bothers me.
>
> I understand (if not agree with) the 'deep philosophy justification'
> of the FSF for a particular licensing strategy.
>
> I understand the views of individuals who don't want to benefit
> corporations without extracting, at least, some token cooperation in
> return.
>
> I don't understand the analogy in which code is 'land' which can be
> 'grabbed'. If a corporation takes ALv2 licensed code and uses it to
> launch some close-source thing, the code isn't used up. It's still
> there where anyone else can use it for anything else.
>

Thanks for saying that... I was thinking about making a similar post, but
hadn't quite found time to
figure out exactly how to express it.

I realize some people interacting in this current discussion may not be
long-time participants in ASF
projects, and / or may be FSF / Free software ideologues... but I think it's
important to realize that the
ASF is not the FSF and that the Apache License is written the way it is for
a reason, and that it reflects
the ideals of the ASF community.  Here, as far as I can tell, it is
completely acceptable for an entity
(corporation or otherwise) to take Apache licensed code, put it into a
proprietary app, and benefit from
it commercially.   Yes, the community most likely finds it *desirable* for
such an entity to contribute
back in kind, but it's not required.  And here, that's just a normal "par
for the course" part of the way things
work.

In short, complaining about what IBM, or any other commercial entity, plans
to do with the OOo code, and
spending all this energy worrying about IBM's strategy, and criticizing IBM,
is not helping this process.

The goal here is to get the code into the incubator, and have a healthy,
vibrant community emerge that can run
a viable project according to the Apache way.  A lot of this discussion
strikes me as tangential (at best) to that.

None of this is meant to disparage TDF, LibreOffice, or Free/Libre
software... but the issues about commercialization
of the code that might be crucial in some orgs, are not (as) relevant here.
  A healthy, vibrant project is relevant... if
IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, Novell, SCO, or Enron decide to use the code for a
commercial project, then so be it.

All of this is "IMO" of course.


Phil

Re: Commerce and open-soure (Was) Proposal to join Apache OpenOffice

[Benson Margulies <bi...@gmail.com>]

The expression 'land-grab' in here bothers me.

I understand (if not agree with) the 'deep philosophy justification'
of the FSF for a particular licensing strategy.

I understand the views of individuals who don't want to benefit
corporations without extracting, at least, some token cooperation in
return.

I don't understand the analogy in which code is 'land' which can be
'grabbed'. If a corporation takes ALv2 licensed code and uses it to
launch some close-source thing, the code isn't used up. It's still
there where anyone else can use it for anything else.

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