[beyond-licensing] My shortlist of issues

[Leslie Hawthorn]

On 20 April 2016 at 19:56, Danese Cooper <danese at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> Since I'll be in London working on InnerSource on the 21st, I thought I'd
> spent a few minutes listing the beyond licensing issues that worry me and
> that prompted me to organize the meeting. I'm also sending my team member
> Duane O'Brien <duobrien at paypal.com>, who attended the Summit last month
> (please send him meeting details)
>
> I've emailed the details to Duane off-list. It will be great to see him
again.

Cheers,
LH


> 1. *Transparency isn't negotiable. *That means board meetings must have a
> public component. Board minutes must be published. Decisions (both
> technical and political) must be publicly documented, and preferably backed
> by consensus. Although it takes time, public discussion must precede or be
> a component of major decisions. Donors must be disclosed. What's more,
> discussions must be publicly archived so decisions can be understood years
> after they are taken.
>
> 2. *Corporations aren't people. *I started saying "Open Source is People"
> a few years ago, as a meme to remind folks that reputation (and merit for
> good works) should only be achieveable by individual people in FOSS. Good
> corporate involvement boils down to being a good place for FOSS people to
> work (because of enlightened policies). Use of corporate commit-bits that
> hide individual contributors isn't open source.
>
> 2. *Open Source people aren't fungibile.* For years I've been watching
> corporations assign and later un-assign large numbers of resources to
> specific FOSS projects like pieces on a chessboard, and I've yet to see
> this practice make a project stronger. FOSS is best when it's about
> passion. Assigned resources are often more preoccupied about serving their
> corporate masters than about the project at hand. And even if they do
> manage to form project attachments, the fact that they may be pulled from
> the project at any time means their involvement is always conditional.
>
> 3. *Patronage is key.* When I work for a company, they gain my
> reputation. The cost of that is supporting my pro bono work (I'm currently
> serving on 3 boards). Many open source people volunteer on boards or in
> other capacities as they work their way into the meritocracy. Companies
> need to support this; it's fundamental to open source.
>
> 4. *Pay-to-Play can be dangerous, and a commitment to mitigate those
> dangers is necessary.* 100% Pay-to-play boards (or projects who reject
> worthy code contributions from non-paying entities) are not good for open
> source. The reason boards must include community elected voting members is
> that corporate representation isn't invested in the project in the same
> way. Rejection of contributions for any reason other than technical merit
> isn't open source. Another version of this is when a company prioritizes
> their contributions over community ones, even at the code review point. All
> work deserves the same prompt review, and the queue and review process
> should be visible.
>
> 5. *Technology must come first.* In my experience, open source strategies
> promoted by corporations are rarely about the best technology winning, and
> that is often evident in the interface to the community. Projects that
> focus on technology before strategy are generally appealing to more
> contributors (and the playing field is generally more level in those
> projects).
>
> There are probably more, but this is a pretty good start of what's
> bothering me today :-).
>
> D
>
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>
>


-- 
----
Leslie Hawthorn
Board Member
Open Source Initiative
http://opensource.org
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