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jdd

2 Dec 2011 2 Dec '11

10:09

Hello, Reading the Pascal platform, I was concerned by his declaration about foundation. Not to say he's not right :-) I simply think that some ideas have to be discussed and may be the moment is there because it have impact on the vote for the board. * initially, the foundation was seen as a fund raiser. May be this is the error. * the other openSOURCE project (Fedora, for example) have a structure, why should it be impossible for us (I mean why should it be so difficult to find people to manage it) * one of the problem I see now in our work is that volunteers can see they work as a work for free in the benefit of the sponsor. Don't read me bad. I like the way our sponsor help us, but the truth is we have absolutely no control on the ressource and this is not good. People who work should have some control. Of course we have to work in sinergy: make the sponsor happy is a good thing, but we should have an independent voice also. * That's why I would like to see a "friends of openSUSE" non profit group as, for example, there are several for my ISP. These/this group could share free comments and make the basis for a may be future foundation. Of course this group would in no way receive massive amount of money nor hold the openSUSE name ownership, but could share and collect non official information (in both direction, to and from SUSE). I still want to say I'm really glad to see this much good candidates. Choosing will be hard :-) jdd -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

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Pascal Bleser

3 Dec 3 Dec

23:56

On 2011-12-02 11:09:32 (+0100), jdd wrote:

...

Reading the Pascal platform, I was concerned by his declaration about foundation. Not to say he's not right :-)

Well it's just my opinion (ok, not just mine), it's definitely open for debate, and I'm fine being proven wrong :) The only thing I would really like to see happening is a discussion about it. I firmly believe it was the right thing to do at the time where we took that decision, but I'm not convinced it still is right now: the situation has changed. Let's just make sure we're taking that decision in the current context for the right reasons, correctly weighing the pros and cons, not just because we started doing it.

...

I simply think that some ideas have to be discussed and may be the moment is there because it have impact on the vote for the board.

Does it? How so? :) You mean that if you disagree with what I wrote about the foundation, you wouldn't vote for me? :) There is really a lot more at stakes than the foundation, and whatever happens with the initiative to have a foundation depends on the opinion of everyone on the board, not just of a single person. I believe that the debate should happen (on whether we actually need one, or rather on whether having a foundation is the better option right now), with me on the board or not ;) And as said, it's not just me, there's at least Coolo and Cornelius who have the same view, as they were the ones who prodded me about it. I don't believe the in-depth discussion should happen right now though, let's keep that for after the board election. The then members of the board will hopefully have that discussion amongst themselves first, and then possibly have a discussion in a broader public. Or not, that's to the discretion of the members of the board.

...

* initially, the foundation was seen as a fund raiser. May be this is the error.

How is that an error? The idea was to 1) have a foundation to solve the most pressing issue: * budget under control of the community (through its board) * have the possibility of getting financially funded through other sponsors as well as individuals 2) start with that, which is already really tricky to get right, and not aim for "complete independence, own the trademarks, etc..." or whatever else one might think of, because that would be even more difficult, and a lot less likely to turn out into anything (so we wouldn't even solve problem #1) I believe it is the most practical and realistic option. What I wrote on my platform page is that the foundation has become a proverbial white horse, where everyone has a different understanding of what the foundation should do, control, decide, etc... That is definitely not good, but hard to get right, as it needs a lot of communication, over and over again. And it's not good because most people will inevitably be deceived by the result.

...

* the other openSOURCE project (Fedora, for example) have a structure, why should it be impossible for us (I mean why should it be so difficult to find people to manage it)

What do you mean with "structure" ? A top-down structure in who gets to decide what ? Or are you relating to a foundation ? The foundation has nothing to do with structure, in any way. NB: Fedora had a non-for-profit foundation for a short while, then killed it off again.

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* one of the problem I see now in our work is that volunteers can see they work as a work for free in the benefit of the sponsor.

Sure, and the sponsors are investing a lot into the project too. For an idea on a few of them, please read what I wrote in my reply to Henne's questions to candidates :) http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-project/2011-12/msg00023.html

...

Don't read me bad. I like the way our sponsor help us, but the truth is we have absolutely no control on the ressource and this is not good. People who work should have some control. Of course we have to work in sinergy: make the sponsor happy is a good thing, but we should have an independent voice also.

Every single person in the project is an independent voice, including those who work for SUSE. It is precisely about synergy, it must be a "win-win scenario" (gah, did I just write that ? ¬¬) to work. Let's be realistic, it's the same with every other major open source project. Is it any different for Fedora, Ubuntu, Mandriva or Debian? (Debian has a somewhat different situation, because there isn't much of a "one big sponsor" (although... HP? :)) but still, many who work on Debian are paid to do so by sponsors.) You simply need a lot of money to run the show. Infrastructure (build, hosting), funding for travels, promo material, ... And, with a certain size (amount of contributors and users), you also need people who are paid full-time to work on it. So any sort of independence is always relative. But hey, don't be pessimistic: we (contributors) have a lot to put into the balance too. It is definitely not in SUSE's interests to piss us off by taking decisions or routes that go against the opinion or interests of a majority of the contributors. It's synergy and, by definition, it goes both ways. The critical thing we have to pay attention to here is to have a trustful and honest flow of communication going both ways.

...

* That's why I would like to see a "friends of openSUSE" non profit group as, for example, there are several for my ISP. These/this group could share free comments and make the basis for a may be future foundation. Of course this group would in no way receive massive amount of money nor hold the openSUSE name ownership, but could share and collect non official information (in both direction, to and from SUSE).

Umm... could you please explain what you mean with "non official information" ? Do you think there is some sort of paranoia master plan to go against the interests of the community ? Do you think that SUSE is holding back information ? I mean, the idea is interesting for funding (but I can tell you, it's going to be great fun with the tax office), but to "share free comments" ? And a future foundation must be a non-for-profit, which means elections. A foundation for the project *must* also have legitimacy, and trust, or it would be pointless. cheers -- -o) Pascal Bleser /\\ http://opensuse.org -- we haz green _\_v http://fosdem.org -- we haz conf

Per Jessen

4 Dec 4 Dec

10:20

Pascal Bleser wrote:

...

On 2011-12-02 11:09:32 (+0100), jdd wrote:

...
Reading the Pascal platform, I was concerned by his declaration about foundation. Not to say he's not right :-)

Well it's just my opinion (ok, not just mine), it's definitely open for debate, and I'm fine being proven wrong :)

The only thing I would really like to see happening is a discussion about it. I firmly believe it was the right thing to do at the time where we took that decision, but I'm not convinced it still is right now: the situation has changed.

How has it changed exactly? We know the ownership of SUSE has changed, but how is that significant wrt the creation of the openSUSE foundation?

...

I don't believe the in-depth discussion should happen right now though, let's keep that for after the board election.

Agree. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (10.7°C) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Martin Schlander

11:20

Søndag den 4. december 2011 11:20:04 skrev Per Jessen:

...

Pascal Bleser wrote:

...
On 2011-12-02 11:09:32 (+0100), jdd wrote:

...
Reading the Pascal platform, I was concerned by his declaration about foundation. Not to say he's not right :-)

Well it's just my opinion (ok, not just mine), it's definitely open for debate, and I'm fine being proven wrong :)

The only thing I would really like to see happening is a discussion about it. I firmly believe it was the right thing to do at the time where we took that decision, but I'm not convinced it still is right now: the situation has changed.

How has it changed exactly? We know the ownership of SUSE has changed, but how is that significant wrt the creation of the openSUSE foundation?

For me the main attraction of the foundation is that it could ideally provide some assurance to contributors that the openSUSE project wouldn't just wither and die, if (god forbid) something nasty (hostile acquisition, bankruptcy, insane management etc.) should happen to SUSE. I think those types of concerns are holding quite some people back from using and contributing to openSUSE. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Bruno Friedmann

12:30

On 12/04/2011 12:20 PM, Martin Schlander wrote:

...

Søndag den 4. december 2011 11:20:04 skrev Per Jessen:

...
Pascal Bleser wrote:

...
On 2011-12-02 11:09:32 (+0100), jdd wrote:

...
Reading the Pascal platform, I was concerned by his declaration about foundation. Not to say he's not right :-)

Well it's just my opinion (ok, not just mine), it's definitely open for debate, and I'm fine being proven wrong :)

The only thing I would really like to see happening is a discussion about it. I firmly believe it was the right thing to do at the time where we took that decision, but I'm not convinced it still is right now: the situation has changed.

How has it changed exactly? We know the ownership of SUSE has changed, but how is that significant wrt the creation of the openSUSE foundation?

For me the main attraction of the foundation is that it could ideally provide some assurance to contributors that the openSUSE project wouldn't just wither and die, if (god forbid) something nasty (hostile acquisition, bankruptcy, insane management etc.) should happen to SUSE.

I think those types of concerns are holding quite some people back from using and contributing to openSUSE.

That's sound reasonable. But and there's a big one! Did that foundation able to enforce all the rights it will have to defend? Past as proved that Novell's Layers staff has done a good work on it (remember the SCO case) Actually, now the deal is done with Attachmate, and the excellent relationship we (community) have with SuSE (business unit) and Attachmate (SuSE owner) calm down the need to be "independent". -- Bruno Friedmann Ioda-Net Sàrl www.ioda-net.ch openSUSE Member & Ambassador GPG KEY : D5C9B751C4653227 irc: tigerfoot -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Pascal Bleser

16:13

On 2011-12-04 13:30:16 (+0100), Bruno Friedmann wrote:

...

On 12/04/2011 12:20 PM, Martin Schlander wrote: [...]

...
For me the main attraction of the foundation is that it could ideally provide some assurance to contributors that the openSUSE project wouldn't just wither and die, if (god forbid) something nasty (hostile acquisition, bankruptcy, insane management etc.) should happen to SUSE.

I think those types of concerns are holding quite some people back from using and contributing to openSUSE.

Sorry, forgot to reply on that point: yes, sure, I think we're all aware that in terms of image, having a non-for-profit foundation makes the project appear a lot more independent. But as I explained in my previous reply to your mail, that independence is relative. What we would need is a foundation which is kind of like the GNOME foundation, with many sponsors providing a lot of funding. But that does not protect the foundation board and, to some extent, the project from being taken over or influenced heavily by specific companies. How much influence the board can take on the project depends on what the board is allowed to do, and that's a very difficult balance to strike in the legal definition of the foundation: you want to avoid a hostile takeover (e.g. a single company dictating what can be done with the funds or not, which is a pretty good way to derail a project), but you also want to enable the foundation to actually do things. That's extremely difficult to define, and needs a lot of expertise from lawyers and experience from other projects that already went down that route. Note that the first thing you get to hear when you ask for advice on creating a foundation for an open source project like ours on the foundations list at freedesktop.org (which is a hub for many people/projects that are in that situation) is: "don't do it". It's really a lot more complicated that just "oh let's do a foundation", which is one of the reasons it's taking so much time :\

...

That's sound reasonable. But and there's a big one! Did that foundation able to enforce all the rights it will have to defend? Past as proved that Novell's Layers staff has done a good work on it (remember the SCO case)

Exactly.

...

Actually, now the deal is done with Attachmate, and the excellent relationship we (community) have with SuSE (business unit) and Attachmate (SuSE owner) calm down the need to be "independent".

The atmosphere is certainly a lot better for several reasons. The main point is that SUSE is a proper business unit of its own now, which it wasn't as part of Novell. That means that SUSE has more control over its own fate, funds, actions. And that means we can communicate more with people from SUSE for taking decisions and doing stuff, rather than with execs from Novell who, frankly have always been a bit disconnected from SUSE, which made that kind of dialogue a lot more difficult. I don't want to downright spit into the Novell soup either though, they did enable us to do a lot of great things as well, including openSUSE in the first place -- things are just never all black or all white :) cheers -- -o) Pascal Bleser /\\ http://opensuse.org -- we haz green _\_v http://fosdem.org -- we haz conf

jdd

16:33

Le 04/12/2011 17:13, Pascal Bleser a écrit :

...

Sorry, forgot to reply on that point: yes, sure, I think we're all aware that in terms of image, having a non-for-profit foundation makes the project appear a lot more independent.

this is not the real situation, as you very well prove it. Having a foundation would not make us independent, but it would make more visible the volunteers work, and allow to have several sponsors (beginning with the users, for the basic work) At a moment, a sponsor have to understand he can't have the butter and the butters money. He can't have the property of the trademark *and* the direction of the volunteeers. Volunteerrs simply wont invest in this situation. Right now it's extremely difficult to count what is the work done for money by paid people and the work done for free (including by the same people). For example, look at the sailing budget (all around the world sailing, for example). The sponsor pay the boat, write his name on it then the sailor sails. It would be much better to have openUSE (or whatever other name, I don't think using the brand name is a good idea) foundation receive money to pay servers - still just an example. and, of course, this do not mean we have to think as all or nothing. For example the trademark could be held by SUSE and the right given to the foundation to use it in some discussed way. Or to begin with a foundation created, a board elected and a small amount of money given, with a roadmap just to see if the board and the subscribers are able to manage this.

...

What we would need is a foundation which is kind of like the GNOME foundation

exactly. This is the final goal, but certainly not befor several years, at best.

...

It's really a lot more complicated that just "oh let's do a foundation", which is one of the reasons it's taking so much time :\

well, if you don't begin, you never reach anything. Libreofice or Blender are examples of success

...

more control over its own fate, funds, actions. And that means we can communicate more with people from SUSE for taking decisions and doing stuff, rather than with execs from Novell who, frankly have always be

is there any publicly available report of success of SUSE, Red Hat or Canonical? we have both to make our sponsor happy and the contributors community happy jdd -- http://www.dodin.net -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Manu Gupta

17:13

Hi All, I had a talk at the conference about the foundation. I have known well that Alan is working on our accounts. So even if we all want to have the foundation, in my opinion what Pascal is trying to put forth that "Are we capable enough to run a foundation?". A foundation is not really a simple matter and even if the ideas seem very wonderful at first, it comes around with a lot of responsibilities. So, the first step would be to see how we start our own base and look at how the foundation is going. So the whole scenario involves a lot of factors? First, Do we really want a foundation? Second, Are we capable enough to get the foundation working? Both of the them need to be tried out. Without actually trying them, we really cannot say anything. Like Alan has been working on the foundation that is a step forward to actually to prove that we are moving in a direction towards building a foundation for the foundation. But that is not the only thing. If actually at all we want a foundation, then we have to see to a lot of things. For example ( and in no particular order ) 0. Convincing our current sponsors SUSE, B1 et all that we are capable enough to run a foundation. 1. Managing our finances. 2. Getting newer and more sponsors during the conference. 3. Getting our services to be hosted on other sponsors infrastructure too. 4. Managing our trademarks effectively. 5. Other than our sponsors, if there are ways to have an income for our own infrastructure. We and the current board has currently taken a few steps and it will be the responsibility of the new board to find answers for these questions 0. Do we need a foundation? ( I for myself would like that very much but at the end we all need to decide) 1. Are we really ready for the foundation ? ( If we want a foundation, then it becomes our responsibility to prove that we are capable enough) 2. If we prove that, then yes we move ahead with the foundation but if do not then it may be worse than what we can imagine. So Foundation is certainly not a thing we can hurry upon but rather take cautious steps to ensure that an independent foundation which we build has a strong base and ensure that it will flourish. A very challenging task but something that we and the new board will have to prove. In my honest opinion, building a strong base for the foundation is more important than the foundation itself in the current scenario. So let us all take a deep breath and think minutely about each and everything and not hurry up. Regarding sponsors, Right now since all or most of the money is handled by SUSE, other companies are apprehensive to put money in other companies account or even in a personal account which even SUSE does not do so. That is the biggest benefit we stand from a foundation. -- Regards Manu Gupta -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Kim Leyendecker

5 Dec 5 Dec

15:51

On 04.12.2011 17:33, jdd wrote:

...

...
What we would need is a foundation which is kind of like the GNOME foundation

exactly. This is the final goal, but certainly not befor several years, at best.

Then, is there a chance to might get some help from the GNOME guys who established the foundation?

...

...
It's really a lot more complicated that just "oh let's do a foundation", which is one of the reasons it's taking so much time :\

well, if you don't begin, you never reach anything. Libreofice or Blender are examples of success

...

...
more control over its own fate, funds, actions. And that means we can communicate more with people from SUSE for taking decisions and doing stuff, rather than with execs from Novell who, frankly have always be

is there any publicly available report of success of SUSE, Red Hat or Canonical?

Haven´t seen a real report, actually, but I know that Red Hat had a total revenue of $1 billion. SUSE? I don´t know. I only now that they are very successfully in Europe. Canonical still gets a lot of money from Mark Shuttleworth. Once he won´t doing this anymore, we can compare them to the other big players of the Linux world ;-)

...

we have both to make our sponsor happy and the contributors community happy

true --kdl -- kind regards, -o) German Wiki Team Kim Leyendecker /\\ Documentation& marketing www.opensuse.org _\_v leyendecker@opensuse.org ===================================================== my GPG Key: 664265369547B825 | IRC: k-d-l Twitter: kim_d_ley | Wiki-Username: openLHAG openSUSE - Linux for open minds - get it free today! -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Kostas Koudaras

6 Dec 6 Dec

11:49

I am top-posting since there is none particularly that I want to answer but express my opinion since many right things were said and some other that I disagree with. Before starting I would like to say that I was one of the people that really expected the foundation and when May(as far as I can remember May was a sort of a 'deadline' for the formation of the foundation) ended and there was no progress with that I was upset and annoyed. I happen to have a talk about it with Cornelius and other guys from the KDE e.V in the oSC11 about if we actually need a foundation and if we do what form should this foundation have. This opened my sight a lot but even then I was still a supporter of the foundation. What really put a bomb on this was the behavior and the actual actions of people of SUSE and Attachmate, since until then we haven't seen enough from SUSE's new owner. As far as the visibility of the volunteers work I think that there is no problem there, also I don't think that if someone wants to contribute in openSUSE is stopped by the fact that there is no foundation formed. Also there are in fact many successful foundations but there are even more foundations that failed, I think that we should first grow up and mature as a community and then think more about it. Don't forget that we exist as a community from 2009 and under my opinion we have some quite big holes in our structure that we must work on before getting there. I have the sense that there is some catastrophe-ology in this post, it is ok to make scenarios but shouldn't those scenarios have a reasonable base? Is there any reason to see that the openSUSE trademarks are in danger now that we don't have a Foundation? Didn't people from SUSE or Atachmate gave us everything we asked and more in some cases? Did they denied us anything or did we took any decision as a community and they, in any way stopped us or tried too? Don't get me wrong, I am not a corporate bitch but I see an unreasonable 'panic' around. I think that eventually we might need the formation of the foundation but since we have the freedom we want and we need from SUSE and Attachmate we might want to take our time and if we finally do it, do it right and do it that way that we will be all sure that this will survive and it will not end up a disaster.Our sponsors so far have proven that we have the luxury of time, why not take advantage of it since under my opinion we need it and we can use it? Kostas 'Warlordfff' Koudaras 2011/12/5 Kim Leyendecker :

...

On 04.12.2011 17:33, jdd wrote:

...
...
What we would need is a foundation which is kind of like the GNOME foundation

exactly. This is the final goal, but certainly not befor several years, at best.

Then, is there a chance to might get some help from the GNOME guys who established the foundation?

...
...
It's really a lot more complicated that just "oh let's do a foundation", which is one of the reasons it's taking so much time :\

well, if you don't begin, you never reach anything. Libreofice or Blender are examples of success

+1

...
...
more control over its own fate, funds, actions. And that means we can communicate more with people from SUSE for taking decisions and doing stuff, rather than with execs from Novell who, frankly have always be

is there any publicly available report of success of SUSE, Red Hat or Canonical?

Haven´t seen a real report, actually, but I know that Red Hat had a total revenue of $1 billion. SUSE? I don´t know. I only now that they are very successfully in Europe. Canonical still gets a lot of money from Mark Shuttleworth. Once he won´t doing this anymore, we can compare them to the other big players of the Linux world ;-)

...
we have both to make our sponsor happy and the contributors community happy

true

--kdl

-- kind regards, -o) German Wiki Team Kim Leyendecker /\\ Documentation& marketing www.opensuse.org _\_v leyendecker@opensuse.org ===================================================== my GPG Key: 664265369547B825 | IRC: k-d-l Twitter: kim_d_ley | Wiki-Username: openLHAG openSUSE - Linux for open minds - get it free today!

-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

-- http://opensuse.gr http://amb.opensuse.gr http://own.opensuse.gr http://warlordfff.tk me I am not me ------- Time travel is possible, you just need to know the right aliens -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

jdd

12:18

Le 06/12/2011 12:49, Kostas Koudaras a écrit :

...

Is there any reason to see that the openSUSE trademarks are in danger now that we don't have a Foundation?

certainly not, in the contrary attribution of the trademark must not be done now. It's probably the very last step for a foundation. We have to get the strenght to protect the trademark and I think it's probably best to have convention from a to be foundation and the trademark owner to have the right of use than to have the full property.

...

Didn't people from SUSE or Atachmate gave us everything we asked and more in some cases?

no. It's not. SUSE and Attachmate give us many things, but only what they want when they want and with no plan. The lack of planning is the worst part, not the amount. We can do with what we receive, but having to ask for anything and wait for an answer is not what make good work done. But, by the way, this can be done without a foundation (see below).

...

Did they denied us anything or did we took any decision as a community and they, in any way stopped us or tried too?

presently nobody knows really how a decision is done. For technical decisions, it's more the matter of the technical staff, but I see little discussion. Should we use systemd as default was not really discussed. The only real discussion I remember was the choice of Kde by default. for non technical decision, like marketting, mostly it's Jos decision, but with little planning ahead. This also do not really need a foundation. So may be a practical solution could be the following (all have to be discussed at large, of course): * redefine the board goals. Each board member should have a dedicated task or range of competence (think as "government minister"), including a treasurer in charge of some money. Nothnig should be decides without the board acceptation. * let each board member group around him some help as needed, including may be some paid for work (secretary, lawyer...?) - could be possible to give some SUSE employee hours * let the board make some planning. I would like to know how many dvd are available, when, what is the budget for reimbursing travels, and many more (not only financial) In fact, the board can work like if he was the foundation board, of course under the sponsor supervision. so we could begin to setup a foundation structure without the hassle of building a foundation. We need only a bit of trust from the sponsor (and I think we deserve it). I speak about the board, because it's the only elected strucure we have, it's sufficiently controlled by the sponsor to be safe and deserve sufficient trust from the contributors of course we could use the hole gap between 12.1 and12.2 to discuss all of this. No hurry, but if discussion is public anybody will be glad to participate. jdd -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

Pascal Bleser

4 Dec 4 Dec

15:53

On 2011-12-04 12:20:02 (+0100), Martin Schlander wrote:

...

Søndag den 4. december 2011 11:20:04 skrev Per Jessen:

...
Pascal Bleser wrote:

...
On 2011-12-02 11:09:32 (+0100), jdd wrote:

...
Reading the Pascal platform, I was concerned by his declaration about foundation. Not to say he's not right :-)

Well it's just my opinion (ok, not just mine), it's definitely open for debate, and I'm fine being proven wrong :)

The only thing I would really like to see happening is a discussion about it. I firmly believe it was the right thing to do at the time where we took that decision, but I'm not convinced it still is right now: the situation has changed.

How has it changed exactly? We know the ownership of SUSE has changed, but how is that significant wrt the creation of the openSUSE foundation?

For me the main attraction of the foundation is that it could ideally provide some assurance to contributors that the openSUSE project wouldn't just wither and die, if (god forbid) something nasty (hostile acquisition, bankruptcy, insane management etc.) should happen to SUSE.

I think those types of concerns are holding quite some people back from using and contributing to openSUSE.

That is exactly what the foundation would *NOT* provide anyway :) (See, when I talked about ... ;)) Well, a foundation wouldn't really solve much regarding that anyway. If SUSE drops the project (how likely is that to happen? none), or if SUSE or Attachmate get a hostile takeover which ends up in killing the project (not extremely likely to happen either, let's be realistic and not play paranoia games), how would a foundation help ? The foundation would need to own the trademarks to be able to continue to use the words and logos of openSUSE. That, or a permanent, non revocable right to use it. From the feedback I got from Novell at the time, this is not going to happen. I've explained this a few times already I think, but IMHO, it's understandable. Trademarks _must_ be enforced, or you lose the trademark (that is actually part of the legal framework, not something you can choose to do). So before SUSE (or Novell, not sure where the trademarks are atm), hands the trademarks over to an openSUSE foundation, I believe we should first wait and see whether the foundation works out well. That is, the right people to run it, attract enough funding to be sustainable, and not be abused. That would take a few years to prove a sufficient safety in the first place. And then, at that point, we could realistically discuss transferring the trademarks to the foundation. As much as I'd like to have an independent non-for-profit foundation that owns the trademarks, let's be honest, we first need to make sure that it's on solid grounds and that the foundation will have the necessary funds or support to enforce the trademarks in legal battles. If not, then we'd be worse off than now, _way_ worse. And then, does that help solving the fact that we would stand without any infrastructure for OBS, opensuse.org, the forums, etc... ? No, not really. We'd have to find quite a few sponsors who'd invest quite a lot of money to be able to have the same infrastructure as what is provided by SUSE/Novell right now. And what about the people who are currently on SUSE's payroll to work 40h/week on openSUSE (and SLE) ? Sure, quite a lot of them would proably continue to hack on openSUSE outside of their day jobs, and some of them would probably land at other sponsors such as B1, but that would still mean a *huge* difference. Probably not something we could recover from. But I don't intend to spread any kind of fear, the community contributes an enormous amount of work in many areas, so SUSE/Novell/Attachmate definitely has no financial interest in killing it. And if some hypothetical big company comes up and buys Attachmate or SUSE (which isn't quite that simple as most would think), well, don't you believe they'd do that for the business value that SUSE provides? In other terms: the revenue? They would be in the same situation: killing the project or the community would be a terrible and crazy decision. In this case, the fact that companies only focus on revenue plays for us ;) cheers -- -o) Pascal Bleser /\\ http://opensuse.org -- we haz green _\_v http://fosdem.org -- we haz conf

Pascal Bleser

16:00

On 2011-12-04 11:20:04 (+0100), Per Jessen wrote:

...

Pascal Bleser wrote:

...
On 2011-12-02 11:09:32 (+0100), jdd wrote:

...
Reading the Pascal platform, I was concerned by his declaration about foundation. Not to say he's not right :-)

Well it's just my opinion (ok, not just mine), it's definitely open for debate, and I'm fine being proven wrong :)

The only thing I would really like to see happening is a discussion about it. I firmly believe it was the right thing to do at the time where we took that decision, but I'm not convinced it still is right now: the situation has changed.

How has it changed exactly? We know the ownership of SUSE has changed, but how is that significant wrt the creation of the openSUSE foundation?

AJ and Alan have worked behind the scenes with the accounting department at SUSE in order to provide better ways to directly support the openSUSE project. A few things still need to be sorted out, and most aren't quite finished enough to be mentioned publicly, but the outlook is pretty good and both AJ and Alan are confident that it's going to work. So nothing I can really talk about right now, let's give them some more time to sort out the remaining nitty gritty details, it will be announced in due time if it works out. If not, well, we can go on with the foundation. Note that I didn't advocate to kill the foundation downright. It's more of a moratorium: given what's being worked on, and the risks that come with a foundation, my personal opinion is that we should rather put the foundation on ice right now, and re-examine the situation in one or two years from now. It's not a zero-sum game: going with a foundation means a lot of risks too. That's okay, but we need to make sure the benefits outweigh the risks. I believe they definitely did when we were with Novell, and where communication and discussion on that matter was a lot more difficult for many small reasons, but my point is that right now, and with what's in the pipe, I personally believe that the balance has changed. Hope that clarifies a bit, and sorry for not being able to give out all the details right now -- I certainly wouldn't want to do it without AJ and Alan's OK, it might be too soon to speak about it :) cheers -- -o) Pascal Bleser /\\ http://opensuse.org -- we haz green _\_v http://fosdem.org -- we haz conf

Peter Linnell

22:51

On 12/04/2011 08:00 AM, Pascal Bleser wrote:

...

On 2011-12-04 11:20:04 (+0100), Per Jessen wrote:

...
Pascal Bleser wrote:

...
On 2011-12-02 11:09:32 (+0100), jdd wrote:

...
Reading the Pascal platform, I was concerned by his declaration about foundation. Not to say he's not right :-)

Well it's just my opinion (ok, not just mine), it's definitely open for debate, and I'm fine being proven wrong :)

The only thing I would really like to see happening is a discussion about it. I firmly believe it was the right thing to do at the time where we took that decision, but I'm not convinced it still is right now: the situation has changed.

How has it changed exactly? We know the ownership of SUSE has changed, but how is that significant wrt the creation of the openSUSE foundation?

AJ and Alan have worked behind the scenes with the accounting department at SUSE in order to provide better ways to directly support the openSUSE project.

A few things still need to be sorted out, and most aren't quite finished enough to be mentioned publicly, but the outlook is pretty good and both AJ and Alan are confident that it's going to work.

So nothing I can really talk about right now, let's give them some more time to sort out the remaining nitty gritty details, it will be announced in due time if it works out.

If not, well, we can go on with the foundation.

Note that I didn't advocate to kill the foundation downright. It's more of a moratorium: given what's being worked on, and the risks that come with a foundation, my personal opinion is that we should rather put the foundation on ice right now, and re-examine the situation in one or two years from now.

It's not a zero-sum game: going with a foundation means a lot of risks too. That's okay, but we need to make sure the benefits outweigh the risks. I believe they definitely did when we were with Novell, and where communication and discussion on that matter was a lot more difficult for many small reasons, but my point is that right now, and with what's in the pipe, I personally believe that the balance has changed.

Hope that clarifies a bit, and sorry for not being able to give out all the details right now -- I certainly wouldn't want to do it without AJ and Alan's OK, it might be too soon to speak about it :)

cheers

Along with the excellent explanation the Pascal has given, I would like simply to note one of the principal reasons I wanted to join the board was to help establish a foundation, as I do have experience with setting up a non-profit in the US, as well as working one for Scribus. Moreover, while I am American, I have lived in France now seven years and have been conducting business in Europe since 1992, so I am also quite familiar with the differences in legal systems. With the Attachmate acquisition, a great many things have changed for the better with respect to openSUSE and the openSUSE community. So, I also have changed my mind that the need for a foundation is less urgent today. The reasons are too numerous to note, but this comes from not only from board activities, but as well as many one to one discussions with the folks who work for SUSE. I am only speaking for myself and not the board, but my considered opinion is it is still early days for the openSUSE community to tackle trying to establish a foundation. It is a *lot* of work and paperwork. We should, given the current situation, be focusing on more important issues: attracting more contributors, making contributions easier and ensuring current contributors feel rewarded and valued to name a few things. Hope that helps to clarify the situation a bit. Cheers, Peter Linnell openSUSE Board Member -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org

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Bruno Friedmann
jdd
Kim Leyendecker
Kostas Koudaras
Manu Gupta
Martin Schlander
Pascal Bleser
Per Jessen
Peter Linnell