Re: Questions To Answer

[Robert Humphreys <rob collab net>]

excellent points Jim - something we have been discussing here @ Collab.Net as well,
and also Bart mentioned last week: the technical governance, and the corporate
contributors council, etc.
Two separate groups affiliated with GNOME -

Brian, a la Apache, should have some good insight into this. Brian?

Jim Gettys wrote:

> I think there are two thingsbeing confused here: we touched on this at
> Usenix...
>
> There is:
>         1) technical governance of the gnome project... Releases, standardization
> of key API's, what gnome is/isn't, all that stuff...
>         2) What various companies may want/need to be able to cooperate
> in furthering Gnome (e.g. joint marketing arrangements, etc.).
>
> I think it very advisable to keep these two problems very separated.
>
> 1) is the harder problem: here we have ducks to heard, but we don't have
> large amounts of funds needed.... I personally think there is alot that
> can be learned by how the IETF gets run here.  Any organization should
> by its nature be international in scope (as the IETF is).
>
> 2) is something the vendors can/should do among themselves: to avoid U.S.
> anti-trust law, there are consortia arrangements possible of various sorts
> possible, and I expect the big companies know alot more about how this
> gets put together than the hacker community concerned with problem 1).
> Potentially large amounts of money gets involved here, and there gets
> to be lots of heat involved due to the money involved
>
> I think it a mistake to mix the two: the two were mixed in the X consortium,
> are mixed to some degree in the Web consortium; some of the reasons, (quite good
> at the time) for this in the X consortium case DO NOT apply anymore, as
> the Internet has allowed a fundamentally new style of software development
> to take place; the unintended consequences of this were very bad to X in
> the long run...
>
> There is the question of how these two organizations should interact, and
> how funds may flow (in that 1) needs some amount of money).
>
> But we're making a mistake here if we don't keep these two issues pretty
> separate in our discussions.
>
>                                         - Jim
>
> > Sender: foundation-list-admin@gnome.org
> > From: Havoc Pennington <hp@redhat.com>
> > Date: 09 Jul 2000 16:25:03 -0400
> > To: Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>
> > Cc: foundation-list@gnome.org
> > Subject: Re: Questions To Answer
> > -----
> > Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> writes:
> > > > Red Cross that the UN has specifically written a treaty for or
> > > > something. So, if you have a better idea, then give it - but there's
> > > > really no alternative here. Foundations have to be in some nation.
> > >
> > > So why pick the USA with its infamously hazardous legal situation ?
> > >
> >
> > Bart can maybe explain. I imagine it's because the
> > board-as-legal-entity is for the benefit of companies, and all the
> > interested companies so far are in the US.
> >
> > Havoc
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-list mailing list
> > foundation-list@gnome.org
> > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
>
> --
> Jim Gettys
> Technology and Corporate Development
> Compaq Computer Corporation
> jg@pa.dec.com
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-list mailing list
> foundation-list@gnome.org
> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list

--
Regards,

Rob
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Rob Humphreys
Collab.Net
425 Second St. SF, CA
V 415.908.1241
C 415.596.9021
rob@collab.net
www.collab.net
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
collab.net /open source expertise /revolutionizing software development