[advocacy-discuss] Corporate Open Source

[Jim Grisanzio]

Ben Rockwood wrote:
> Contribution is low because adoption is low. I'm sure if you looked at 
> Linux/GNU developers as a percentage of the total user base we'd be 
> pretty close.
>
> Adoption is low for a variety of reasons, one of which is continued 
> uncertainty about where this is all going. The community has grown 
> both intra- and extra- SMI, however the communication has slowed to a 
> trickle. 

I agree on the communication bit. That will have to be addressed at the 
summit. It involves advocacy. But I have to say, I´m happy we are no 
longer tossing flaming arrows at each other every day on list, but we do 
need to start the flow of information again in a more organized way. I 
think this will be part of the OGB session as well. We as a community 
need to set a clear direction.

> Even from an advocacy standpoint, last year we coordinated events like 
> CommunityOne here in this community, this year it was an entirely 
> corporate event, for example. Sun has gone from involving the 
> community in the process to making decisions on behalf of the 
> community, it started with the trademark issue and continues steadily 
> worse, and with the current OGB its not going to be fixed but rather 
> solidified.
>
> I'm sorry, I don't like being negative, but I've repeatedly raised 
> flags about this slide and those warnings went unheeded. The reality 
> is, if you want to _really_ know whats happening with OpenSolaris you 
> need to go work for Sun, transparency has been shot to hell.

Oh, I wouldn´t at all go that far. But I get your point. :) Some are 
more open than others.

> The OpenSolaris(tm) distro will turn things around because it will 
> bring in a large influx of new people with little to no expectation or 
> history, that should put things back on an uptick. That will put the 
> responsibility squarely on Advocacy and Docs to bring new users in and 
> make them successful quickly, restoring some of the communication we 
> had with Sara, et al, to coordinate efforts inside and out will help 
> that process.

I think the Advocacy CG probably needs to drive more actively than some 
others, but I also really believe that advocacy (lower case ¨a¨) is 
everyoneś responsibility in the community to one degree or another. And 
also, one of things we have to realize is that there are people doing 
advocacy for OpenSolaris who are /not/ part of the Advocacy CG and not 
even part of the OpenSolaris community on opensolaris.org. Many are in 
different countries. I´d really like to get those guys connected in some 
way, but I realize that´s probably not a reality given time zones, 
languages, and cultures. My point is that there is actually more 
advocacy going on than we realize ... we just don´t see it all the time 
because it´s distributed but not yet pervasive globally.

Jim
-- 
http://blogs.sun.com/jimgris