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Live Q&A With Outercurve Foundation President Jim Jagielski
Jim Jagielski is one of the co-founders of the Apache Software Foundation, a director of the Open Source Initiative (OSI), new President of the Outercurve Foundation, and as we mentioned yesterday, your interview subject for the next two hours. Mr. Jagielski will be answering your questions below until 2:00 ET (18:00 GMT). Please keep it to one question per post so everyone gets a chance.
Update: 2pm ET has come and gone. Mr. Jagielski might stick around for a bit and answer questions later so make sure to check back. A big thanks to him for his time and answers! Here's a link to his user page where you can read all his responses.
Update: 2pm ET has come and gone. Mr. Jagielski might stick around for a bit and answer questions later so make sure to check back. A big thanks to him for his time and answers! Here's a link to his user page where you can read all his responses.
What are your thoughts on the software patent ban New Zealand just passed?
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
Outercurve was founded by but supposedly separate from Microsoft. But most of your projects are Office and Visual Studio plugins, Windows applications and .Net. How separate can you be?
Only Anonymous Cowards :)
Are there any plans to ever revive the Apache Harmony project (Open Source Java Platform), or is it dead forever?
What's your biggest project right now, and is it Windows related?
Hi. The .net product manager at Oracle recently responded to a request to have the Oracle .net provider put into a NuGet package by refusing over licensing reasons: https://forums.oracle.com/message/11149050#11149050
It's not the legal concerns around downloaders. It's the legal rights around how uploaded software is treated.
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https://www.nuget.org/policies/Terms
User Submissions.
Outercurve does not want to receive confidential or proprietary information from User through the Web site. Any material, information, or other communication User transmits or posts ("Communications") to the Web site will be considered non-confidential and non-proprietary and Outercurve will be under no obligation of any kind with respect to such information. Outercurve will be free to reproduce, make derivative works from, use, disclose, and distribute the Communications to others without limitation. At our sole election, Outercurve may provide authorship attribution by listing User's name.
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As soon as I upload something to the Outercurve Foundation (via nuget.org), I've given them plenary rights to the software. That's a big problem for most commercial software distributions, including ODP.NET.
If you're an open source vendor, then this policy is fine. If Outercurve wants to distribute commercial software, it cannot co-opt ownership rights. This is the biggest issue, but there are others. For example, how can Oracle ensure that no one else on the site represents themselves as Oracle? There's no way to authenticate the "author", especially if you're downloading directly within Visual Studio.
Fundamentally, all these business issues can be boiled down to characteristics of open source (i.e. bazaar, torrents) distribution. If Outercurve introduced closed source/commercial-friendly (i.e. cathedral, iTunes) distribution, it would eliminate pretty much all of Oracle's business/legal concerns. But Outercurve is devoted to working with corporate developers in open source environments. If the component is closed source, then it doesn't fit within Outercurve's mission. That makes me skeptical they would ever support commercial distribution.
Essentially, Oracle would need to open source ODP.NET just for nuget.org distribution. That is like putting the cart before the horse.
Now, if somebody created a commercial software NuGet distribution channel, people could purchase, rent, or try out commercial software from it. That would be something Oracle would consider. That's why I asked about an alternative popular NuGet feed.
Since Outercurve is specifically mentioned here, do you have any comment on this? Is there plans to fix the situation for freely available (but commercial) tools like the Oracle provider?
Thanks.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
How tough is it to consign a project to the Attic?
If you care about software freedom, why doesn't your organization promote copyleft type licenses like the GPL?
Sadly, the apache license doesn't require others to release the code, and helps proprietary projects.
The OuterCurve Foundation mission statement says the Foundation "has no pre-suppositions about particular projects, platforms, or open source licenses." But are there some specific projects that you, personally, would like to work with? Projects you think would benefit the open source community greatly by what you do?
Is Hadoop going to take over the world? Or, I guess an appropriately in-scope question is, do you plan for Hadoop to take over the world? And if so, what happens when it is so aggressively co-opted by private companies that it becomes too difficult to maintain as an actual open platform (ahem Android)?
Slashdot is now one of many great places to get info; back in the "glory days" it was one of a very small number.
I think that relevance is hard to gauge in many ways, and that's why more "crowd-sourced" venues are popular, because they allow the masses to determine what's important and not. But, as can be seen w/ Wikipedia for example, the masses aren't always "correct" :) But relying on known experts and people *really* in touch w/ the community is also a Good Thing and could be encouraged a bit more.
Why do we need another foundation. Couldn't our time and money be better spent focusing on what is already out there?
Yesterday there were two stories on Slashdot that made ASF seem like it lost its way. I was surprised that nobody who was mentored through the ASF (as I was) has responded. How do you feel that ASF is when it comes to enriching the open-source developer community through its multiple mentorship programs?
Outercurve isn't a part of MS at all. So it'll have no impact although, if the new CEO is more "understanding" of Open Source, it's likely that there will be opportunities for Outercurve and other orgs to help MS see the light.
What did Spock say was that old Vulcan proverb: only Nixon could go to China
For developers of small open-source projects, how to Outercurve and the ASF differ? What are the strengths of Outercurve that would compel developers to use Outercurve over other foundations like ASF, Eclipse.org, or Github?
Dashing good looks. Expert coding skills. Oratory skills of a god. And exceptional humility.
The whole DNT issue is now over and done...
I am passionate about Open Source. So anything I can do to help with that, especially when it's directed towards the grassroots developers and their projects, I am drawn to. Being asked to be President allows for Outercurve to really ramp up the efforts started by Sam Ramji in making Outercurve an influential foundation.
Plus, I'm out of my mind. :)
Evah rever on.
Yes, I still write a LOT of code, and I really enjoy doing it.
I would be remiss in not saying that I'm lucky enough to work for Red Hat, which is as passionate about Open Source as I am, and they allow me to indulge in all my Open Source efforts, from coding to the speaking/leadership stuff.
I think what's cool is that whatever organizational and leadership stuff I do, or am known for, arose from my actual coding efforts. It was all kind of "placed" on me, instead of me trying to grab it. And I am hardly unique in that regards. I love how open source does that, that the experts are those who walk-the-walk and talk-the-talk and not just talking heads.
Simply because they *don't* have the best record. One can either gripe and complain, or one can spend some effort in education with the hopes that you make some change for the better. No matter what, it's worth a try. And slowly but surely we *are* seeing some positive changes, and that's a Good Thing.
Thx!
In fact, I *STILL* hack on Apache httpd... So that's about 18+ years of steady development on that project.
What efforts would *you* like to see Outercurve (or whoever) take on to benefit the FLOSS community??
Mostly it was to disassociate the foundation with the Codeplex hosting service. People would, understandably, get them confused, and it further strengthened the belief that the foundation was a "sham" by Microsoft. So we went with Outercurve to create our *own* identity.
Who knows... maybe because he lives in Canada
*duck*
I was a *joke*
Uh oh. He's onto us.
Without a license, whatever code you produce is assumed to be under a copyright. That means legally people can't make copies, etc... A License is what provides the freedoms and openness required to allow people to see your code, share your code, distribute your code, etc...
That's why all those projects on Github that don't have a license are soooooo scary. Even though you can fork, etc, you have no real *rights* to do much of anything which the code. It's the license which grants those rights and freedoms.
Well, the question assumes that Oracle would have donated OpenOffice to Outercurve... I think it's kind of obvious that Oracle wanted it to go to the ASF and that other options weren't on the table. Now this could be implied as a Good Thing (a sort of olive branch towards Apache after the Java fiasco), or a Bad Thing (let those SOBs at Apache take all the heat), depending on one's world-view and mindset.
IMO, the "community" is much larger than "just" the LibreOffice community or the old OpenOffice community. The various versions and offshoots of OpenOffice are all part of this larger community, and so the question also assumes that "the community" is just LibreOffice itself, which I disagree with.
In all cases, IMO Outercurve would have handled it similarly to the way the ASF did: accept the code donation and welcome any and all comers with open arms. What would have happened after *that* is anyone's guess.
Both the Microsoft Public License and the Microsoft Reciprocal License are Free and Open Source licenses (as determined by the FSF and OSI). The others ain't and so there's no need to use them, imo.
And yet, you are here as well...
Strange, huh?
The issue is that Oracle controls who gets the TCK and they put restrictions on it for Apache that they didn't put on for themselves (OpenJDK). Despite having a signed agreement to the contrary as well as agreeing w/ Apache back before Oracle bought Sun.
Weird, huh?
Outercurve isn't a part of MS at all. So it'll have no impact although, if the new CEO is more "understanding" of Open Source, it's likely that there will be opportunities for Outercurve and other orgs to help MS see the light.
Since MS is a publicly traded mega-corporation. They just happens to sell software as one of their meriad ways to make money, I don't see how they could be made to "see the light." Unless you mean to stop selling software as part of their business?
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
Ahh, but then s/w patents aren't necessarily patents of algorithms. Lets define, exactly, what constitutes a software patent by defining what a "good" one is, and then we can debate whether the concept is OK or not.
Why? A couple of reasons. First of all, it was the basis for Apache entering into the EC and the JCP. Our involvement was predicted on the ability to obtain TCKs for Apache projects. Secondly, the ASF was promised it, but then denied the TCK (actually, an *open source compatible* TCK), and that's simply Not Right. Finally, the goal of creating s/w is that it be used, and the lack of certification significantly hampers that, as well as opens the project to submarine patents. Think Oracle is going to sue itself?
Just to be clear, I did not "sell out" nor did anyone associated with Outercurve. It's a shame that little brains can only hold so much info before their lower intestines take up the load.
Open Source doesn't mean stop selling software. Just ask Red Hat, who aren't exactly small. And even being Open Source friendly doesn't mean doing Open Source yourself.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
But he isn't working for Microsoft. What you're saying isn't true.
Do you even know what Outercurve does and who in the open source community is working with it? Look at who the project mentors are. Do you know that it will accept any license? Have you read its bylaws? That it provides resources for open source projects from *any* source? Ignorance isn't a virtue.
Here's a dime. Buy a clue.
First of all, Outercurve != Microsoft.
Secondly, I work for Red Hat, which is open as Open Source as you can get.
Thirdly, I am also on the board of Apache and OSI. Maybe you've heard of them.
Fourthly, your ignorance is showing.
Fifthly, Bananas are the Atheists' Nightmare.
Ahhh... good ol' jagubox. I recall that old A/UX server warmly and credit it with my 1st real "claim to fame" on the Interwebs. But jagubox is, sadly, no more, having long ago been retired after I left NASA. There are a handful of mirrors around, last I checked.
Thx for the memories!