Re: [fdn-ann] Re: GNOME MEDIA ADVISORY seems to be going beyond original plans

[Maciej Stachowiak <mjs eazel com>]

jg@pa.dec.com (Jim Gettys) writes:

> I find I'm not on the foundation-announcement list: Alanna forwarded
> this to me.  Would someone please fix?
> 
> Strong comments below...

Jim,

Thanks for your comments, let me see if I can respond to some.

> 
> > 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Maciej Stachowiak [mailto:mjs@eazel.com]
> > Sent: Tuesday, August 08, 2000 8:36 PM
> > To: Miguel de Icaza
> > Cc: Barbara Heffner; foundation-announcement@gnome.org;
> > emcshane@chenpr.com; msouza@chenpr.com; Marco.Boerries@Eng.Sun.COM
> > Subject: Re: [fdn-ann] GNOME MEDIA ADVISORY FOR REVIEW
> > 
> > 
> > Miguel de Icaza <miguel@helixcode.com> writes:
> > 
> > > Hello guys,
> > >
> > >    I just talked to Marco from Sun, and we would like to make the
> > > Foundation press release a lot more interesting than it is right now.
> > >
> > >    The current focus is to announce a GNOME foundation that will
> > > hopefully do something in the future, and say how excited we are about
> > > this and so on. 
> > >
> > >    Here is an outline of the proposal and it adds a lot more meet to
> > > the announcement:
> > >
> > > 	1. Main point of the announcement: Key Players join forces to
> > >            create GNOME Foundation and deliver next generation user
> > >            environment for PCs, Internet Devices and PDAs.
> > >
> > > 	2. GNOME Foundation adopts Open Office as its productivity
> > >            suite to be integrated together with GNOME Office.
> > 
> > This sounds like a much stronger statement than what we felt
> > comfortable with making before - I think we should still keep this
> > vague since we have not seen the code, etc etc.
> 
> I agree with Maciej: Gnome should NEVER adopt things sight unseen.  This
> is a terrible precedent to set.  This goes completely against the principle
> of (rough) consensus government: the people making Gnome have had NO chance
> to look this over and see if it is appropriate.
> 
> The most that should EVER happen is that an organization, be it the Gnome 
> Foundation or W3C, or whatever, is examining it to see if it might be 
> useful.  W3C has a process for formal submissions: the Gnome Foundation 
> needs a similar process.  In the W3C case, the process includes what 
> submittors can or cannot say to the press when making submissions.
> I recommend we do likewise FROM THE BEGINNING: this was a major headache
> in W3C until the process was established: companies played games in the
> press implying adoption, when at most it was a trial balloon.
> 
> It could also create major political headaches for other companies to 
> join the foundation: but I'm in fact much more concerned about precendent, 
> which I believe is a killer. (though it could certainly seriously affect 
> the current announcement; though I haven't raised the issue yet, it
> might affect Compaq's participation).

Jim,

Our plan before Miguel's proposal was to use delicate language which
would indicate we want to work towards integrating the office suites,
without promising anything substantive (since we cannot, until the
code is released and Sun shows how well they can work with the
community). There is a delicately balanced consensus around that
language in the community, and we have gotten some people on board
only by agreeing not to make stronger promises. I hope a vague promise
will be acceptable to you, and to Compaq.


> > 
> > > 	3. GNOME Foundation adopts Mozilla/Netscape
> > > 		Marco will work on getting a spokeperson from AOL for
> > > 		this.
> > 
> > Hmmm, I wonder if AOL or mozilla.org could be convinced to join the
> > GNOME Foundation then.
> 
> I have much less problem with Mozilla/Netscape: the code is out there,
> and it is clearly an open source project at this date.  But again,
> I wonder if there is rough consensus in the Gnome project about mozilla.
> That is for other's to judge, though.

I think the Mozilla project has been getting some bad PR lately, and
mentioning it now might reflect badly on GNOME. I think we should
mention Mozilla only if we can get AOL to make some kind of new
commitment.
 
> But even leaving this aside, things are getting close to this announcement, 
> and I'm getting nervous about the scope changing: we don't want companies 
> to find at the last minute they must withdraw, and the resulting furor 
> that might result.  It is certainly making ME nervous.
> 
> Lets not let mission creep spoil this party....  We are stronger together
> than disunited.  We've got most of the industry on board, and that is 
> worth alot.

You make a very good point here.
 
> > 
> > > 	4. The companies involved in this announcement are going to
> > >            make GNOME better and devote programming resources to make
> > >            this happen.
> > >
> > > 		How each company involved in the announcement will
> > > 		help this.
> > >
> > > 	5. GNOME technologies are the platform of choice for internet
> > >            devices, embedded systems "dot com" devices, desktop
> > >            systems, SOHO etc.
> > 
> > This sounds like quite an exaggeration at this point, to say we are
> > the "platform of choice" for these things. Hopefully soon it won't be.
> > 
> >  - Maciej
> 
> I don't think hyperbole helps us here, so I again agree with Maciej.

We should strive for the right balance on this, so we sound exciting
without sounding like we're blowing things way out of proportion.

 - Maciej