[cab-discuss] CAB conf call - communication

[Keith M Wesolowski]

On Thu, Feb 08, 2007 at 09:28:54PM +0100, Frank Van Der Linden wrote:

> I guess this is just all an exercise in decisionmaking, a mechanism that 
> has been largely untested so far in the OpenSolaris community. That's 
> the big issue. In this case, Sun, as the copyright holder, could legally 
> push this through. But what if the community disagrees? And what exactly 

This is the difference between an advisory board and a governing
board.  As an advisor to Sun, the CAB had no authority to make any
binding decisions, and its lack of legitimacy (indeed, lack of any
real pretense of independence) offered the fledgling community no
reason to support it.  The CAB, with those drawbacks, was disbanded
nearly a year ago.  It no longer exists.  There are no CAB members, no
CAB meetings, and this list should be no longer be called cab-discuss.

In its place, with the force of a grant of independent powers in the
form of the charter, we have the OGB.  For a variety of reasons, the
Initial OGBs have lacked legitimacy in that they have been appointed
rather than elected.  That too will soon change.  But in all other
ways, the OGB we have today is no different from the one we will have
after elections.  Its chartered job is to govern.  Not to advise, not
to lobby.  It is not a lower house and its decisions are, generally,
not subject to review by Sun or anyone else who is not a voting
member.  The decisions of the OGB as they relate to the OpenSolaris
community are binding.

Sun, by virtue of copyright ownership, is free to grant additional
licenses to OpenSolaris code under whatever terms it sees fit.  That
does not mean such a decision need be accepted or adopted by the
OpenSolaris community, nor does it invalidate or revoke existing
licenses.  In such a scenario, the OGB - presumably with popular
mandate - could in effect create a license-based fork of exactly the
type described in the position paper.  But that fork would in fact be
the main fork, by virtue of the OGB's position of leadership.
Obviously, only an OGB secure in its power and with the full
confidence of the community, would take such an action.  But under
those circumstances, it would effectively nullify Sun's choice by
keeping developmers unified behind the CDDL-only "fork"[0].  That is
not to say Sun's hypothetical choice would be free of consequences,
but - and this is the key - the only people who would be making
(other-license)-only contributions would never have been members of
the OGB-governed community anyway; thus, even in the absence of
dual-licensing, those contributions would never have been available to
us anyway.

Please do not mistake this for support of GPLv3 or any other dual
licensing scheme.  I don't wish to conflate that argument with the
matter actually at hand here, which is the nature of the OGB.  A
strong, community-backed *governing* board leads, steers, and decides.
That board must be secure in its authority, cognizant of its
limitations, and sufficiently inclusive to retain the overwhelming
backing of the community as a whole.  Such an OGB offers both
much-needed community leadership and an effective counterweight to
Sun's position.  Both the structure of the charter and the name of the
organization were chosen to reflect the desire for just such a body.
The point of my description above is not that dual licensing is
beneficial or even harmless; it is to emphasize that an effective OGB
could, simply by existing, limit the actions Sun would be willing to
take.  A weak OGB backed by a few factions of a divided community,
even if consulted by Sun, would have little ability to drive the
decision - and all of the negative consequences which have been
discussed at length would be much more severe regardless of the choice
Sun eventually makes.

As with any young entity, the OGB we have today lacks most of these
characteristics.  What we're seeing here is a product mainly of the
OGB's lack of security, a feeling well-justified by its appointed
status and the challenges we face in bootstrapping ourselves into
self-governance.  That insecurity led to a real fear that Sun would
announce a decision before the OGB could act, and that the OGB would
not have the capital to oppose it.  That fear, given the current level
of community cohesion, is entirely justified and would most surely be
borne out if Sun were to take such a premature action.  One would hope
that Sun would wait until an elected OGB has taken office and
established itself to bring a set of formal questions about licensing
before the board, where they could be properly debated with the full
set of facts.  Whether or not Sun chooses to do this is outside the
OGB's control.  But as OGB nominations open, I'd humbly suggest that
we all consider very carefully how we expect the OGB to operate - not
only when other actors cooperate but also when they are hostile.  How
shall the OGB achieve the kind of community cohesion necessary?  How
shall it engage with Sun and other vendors?  Perhaps most importantly,
what steps should the OGB take to focus discussion and *decision* on
highly controversial matters?

The OGB we have today has, despite the best of intentions, been
ineffective in its answers to these questions.  I say this without
malice toward its members; the fact merely reflects the immaturity of
the board as an entity and the challenging conditions under which it
has operated.  Nevertheless, the events of the past several weeks
illustrate the questions we as a community must answer about
ourselves.  My hope is that the personal animosity, justified or not,
will rapidly fade away and be replaced by constructive commentary on
these more central issues.  Right or wrong, what's done is done.  It
can be debated, revised, revoked, or replaced, but only in a context
that supports both the process of doing so and the result.  So what
next?

[0] Presumably Sun would compel its engineers to contribute under both
licenses, but no one is under any obligation to retain both of them
when redistributing.

-- 
Keith M Wesolowski		"Sir, we're surrounded!" 
FishWorks			"Excellent; we can attack in any direction!"