[topicmapmail] Ontopia goes open source

[thomas]

it's really good news that the OKS is going open source! i always was  
of the opinion that the unavailability of a scalable open source  
solution was a major obstacle for the adoption of topic maps and that  
it was an unlucky combination that ontopians dominated many  
discussions while keeping their product closed. i'm also eager to see  
how the OKS is implemented internally. so: thanks!

of course contributing to a code base that is owned by a company is  
unattractive - but i personally don't mind so much if the open  
sourcing happens through a foundation or not. i wouldn't want anybody  
to put much effort in administration etc. handing a project over to a  
already established foundation like apache.org or the like would maybe  
lessen that overhead. otherwise i would be fine with version (2):

* Lars Marius Garshol
>
> (2) We simply open source the software and do nothing aobut ownership.
>      In this case, contributions will be owned by those who create
>      them. Ownership will effectively be shared between all those who
>      contribute to the project.

i'm not an expert in licenses but aren't there many open source  
projects that work solidly on these grounds?

ciao
thomas



Am 22.04.2009 um 15:20 schrieb Lars Marius Garshol:

>
> * Steve Pepper
>>
>> People give of themselves when they see that others are giving of
>> themselves, and they stop giving of themselves if they fear (rightly
>> or wrongly) that someone might be taking advantage of them.
>
> Now this is certainly true. It would be awful if people did not
> contribute to the project because they mistakenly thought that their
> contributions would be owned by others. If the confusion over how
> ownership in open source projects works is as widespread as this
> discussion has indicated that in itself would be a reason to go for
> the foundation model.
>
>> (I suspect that we are not alone, but it would be good if others on
>> this were to confirm that.)
>
> Yes. It would be interesting to hear what others think about this.
>
> As far as I can tell, the rationale seems to basically boil down to
> goodwill because people perceive the setting up of a foundation as a
> positive thing. That's fair enough. How persuasive it will be to the
> people who have to actually pay for it I don't know. I now hear via
> other channels that there are people in Bouvet agitating for the
> setting up of a foundation, so there is definitely a chance.
>
> We'll see. Personally I would be happy to see a foundation being set
> up so long as it wouldn't require me to waste more weeks of my life on
> lawyers, fax machines, and printers. And, I must add, so long as it
> wouldn't be consuming funds that could actually go to the project
> itself instead.
>
> --Lars M.
> http://www.garshol.priv.no/tmphoto/
> http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/
>
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