If you want Open Source politics, you might want to look at organizations like the Apache (www.apache.org/foundation), Gnome (foundation.gnome.org), and Python (www.python.org/psf) Foundations. I worked on the Jabber Software Foundation (http://www.jabber.org/jsf.html) for a while. We developed special interest groups and and an enhancement proposal system based on similar things at Gnome and Python. There is a Jabber Council for which elections are currently underway that form a main decision-making body for Jabber. I put together a piece based on my experience advocating establishing an Open Corporation for your efforts. Still, benevelent dicatorship still has a lot to be said for it, though.
I did an analysis of about 35 "Open Source Businesses" a little while ago. The analysis was informal but it's pretty clear you just can't build a scalable business on open source. Sure, you can build a nice little consulting business, but you just can't build a significant margin-based business. Simple economics. Hasn't worked. Doesn't work. I'm not going to argue the ethics of this, just the economics.
I tried to address this issue of programmers not getting paid with a larger article about Open Corporations that advocated that open source emulated the music industry more and compensate programmers like rock stars.
Parsing out addresses from web sites is notoriously unreliable. A company can have multiple addresses for multiple locations, franchises will have location finder code accessing databases instead of static HTML pages, locations can be in graphic text rather than parsable text, etc. Doubt that he solved all of those issues.
Worked at a company 3 years ago that sold similar technology to another major search company. It cross-referenced domain name addresses to business listings from InfoUSA. Maybe 60% coverage with 80% accuracy.
When SourceXchange was active we got over 30 responses to our RFP. We awarded the contract to a professional developer with some open source experience. The work was exceptional - done on time, in-budget and at the highest quality. We released the code as open source with the expectation that open source developers would take over maintenance. The code wasn't really taken up by the community nor was it really strategic to the company so the code wasn't really extended very far. Everyone seemed to be pretty happy - and the open source code base was extended.
After that we did a number of smaller projects that were taken on successfully by "pure" open source developers. At last check, the open source developers were getting paid to develop open source code. The company was getting the software it wanted. Again, everybody seemed to be pretty happy about the arrangement.
So I guess the upshot is that open source developers and rfps do mix. It just depends on the kind of RFP and the developers themselves to determine just how well they mix.
SourceXchange was great until it went dark. We got some great proposals to some Jabber open source development RFPs there. Collab.net has picked up the slack so that's an option too.
In general, I'd recommend trying to find the associated developer email lists for open source projects (or, of course, the Jabber conference rooms if they have them!) and post there. Can't think that would upset people.
For Jabber, send your RFP to the JDEV email list. Go to http://mailman.jabber.org/listinfo/jdev for info.
. I've actually managed a number of Jabber open source projects so talk to me too! (bauer@michaelbauer.com)
*DISCLAIMER* I work for Jabber.com. Thought I'd take a few moments to respond to a few things.
1. jabber.com hired pretty much all of the original jabber.org developers.
At one time a lot of different people worked for jabber.com but right now pretty much all of the original jabber.org developers DON'T work for jabber.com. And most all of them work on the open source code anyway.
2. The jabber.org guys changed away from GPL to jabber.com's own JOSL ("jabber open source license").
It's more we like adding onto, not changing away from GPL. Like many other
Open Source Licenses JOSL allows dual-licensing. Best of both worlds.
3. It is unclear (to me) if you contribute to jabber.org how/if your work will be pulled into jabber.com.
You're work's under your own copyright. Like other open source code, you agree to submit your changes for inclusion in a derivative open source work but that's all. That work will have to be open source too. We can't use your stuff without your permission in any other way. No one can.
4. jabber.com is the "commercial" version of jabber.org. You pay them for it and they give various kinds of support. They've supposedly done alot of testing on it.
Yep. Following some of the best open source business examples.
5. jabber.com is a completely different codebase than jabber.org. (for example.com uses pthreads and.org uses pth different thread libs)). The.com people are trying to add clustering and scalability that.org's code base doesn't have. I'm not sure if they're giving that back to.org
Not completely, no. And a pthreads version of the.com code has already been released to open source.
6. I'm skeptical as to how much.org will continue to thrive (as opposed to before.com) now that its main developers are working for.com on a different code base.
There's no two ways about this: jabber.org will thrive. We're doing a number of things to insure this, most importantly creating the Jabber Foundation, modeled along the lines of the Apache Foundation. We don't have all the answers on balancing commercial and open source relationships. We're open to all kinds of suggestions on how to do this. But know this: we are bound and determined to commit the resources to insure the Project grows.
7. As of a month ago, the jabber.com server didn't support the msn/yahoo/aim connections because that code is contained in "transports" modules designed to work with jabber.org's vastly different pth-based code base. And my understanding was it would be a "couple of quarter" before they're in. When you try out jabber.com's open server and see that it does appear to connect to msn/yahoo/aim, the way they are doing it is they are running a jabber.org server side-by-side with the jabber.com server and doing a jabber-jabber intermediate transport (ie the.com server is relying on the.org server to do the msn/yahoo/aim connections). I'm saying this is good or bad, but it is definitely a factor if you're considering buying a jabber.com server and support to allow your customers to connect to aim/yahoo/msn.
We're all working on the best way to do this. I think you'll see some progress sooner than later.
8. jabber.com won't sell support for aim/msn/yahoo because they can't "indemnify" it (or whatever) - they can't supposedly guarantee the connectivity. While it is true they can't guarantee the connectivity (until aim/yahoo/msn license it) it seems to me they can still sell it while explicitly stating they can't guarantee it. (I believe Odigo does - odigo.com is another IM solution that sells server, client, custom IM stuff).
See above.
Hey, if you have any questions, I'm bauer at jabber.com.
Jabber.org and Jabber.com (and any other parties would be most certainly welcome) are working together to establish a Jabber Foundation along the lines of the Apache and Gnome Foundations to assist in addressing many of the issues surrounding Jabber being raised here. We've just completed a survey to help us gather some suggestions for addressing these issues and have gotten some great results. One of the many initiatives we're undertaking, in addition to improved documentation, enhanced client development, and extended user involvement, is formal support for the ongoing IMPP work, in particular CPIM, SIP and BEEP. If you'd like more information, email me or info@jabber.org. Peace!
Slashdot Mirror
If you want Open Source politics, you might want to look at organizations like the
Apache (www.apache.org/foundation),
Gnome (foundation.gnome.org), and
Python (www.python.org/psf) Foundations.
I worked on the Jabber Software Foundation
(http://www.jabber.org/jsf.html) for a while. We developed special interest groups and and an enhancement proposal system based on similar things at Gnome and Python. There is a Jabber Council for which elections are currently underway that form a main decision-making body for Jabber. I put together a piece based on my experience advocating establishing an Open Corporation for your efforts. Still, benevelent dicatorship still has a lot to be said for it, though.
I did an analysis of about 35 "Open Source Businesses" a little while ago. The analysis was informal but it's pretty clear you just can't build a scalable business on open source. Sure, you can build a nice little consulting business, but you just can't build a significant margin-based business. Simple economics. Hasn't worked. Doesn't work. I'm not going to argue the ethics of this, just the economics.
I tried to address this issue of programmers not getting paid with a larger article about Open Corporations that advocated that open source emulated the music industry more and compensate programmers like rock stars.
Wouldn't the Trinity constitute a committee?
Parsing out addresses from web sites is notoriously unreliable. A company can have multiple addresses for multiple locations, franchises will have location finder code accessing databases instead of static HTML pages, locations can be in graphic text rather than parsable text, etc. Doubt that he solved all of those issues.
Worked at a company 3 years ago that sold similar technology to another major search company. It cross-referenced domain name addresses to business listings from InfoUSA. Maybe 60% coverage with 80% accuracy.
FYI
I think the correct spelling is midiclorianTitis.
When SourceXchange was active we got over 30 responses to our RFP. We awarded the contract to a professional developer with some open source experience. The work was exceptional - done on time, in-budget and at the highest quality. We released the code as open source with the expectation that open source developers would take over maintenance. The code wasn't really taken up by the community nor was it really strategic to the company so the code wasn't really extended very far. Everyone seemed to be pretty happy - and the open source code base was extended.
After that we did a number of smaller projects that were taken on successfully by "pure" open source developers. At last check, the open source developers were getting paid to develop open source code. The company was getting the software it wanted. Again, everybody seemed to be pretty happy about the arrangement.
So I guess the upshot is that open source developers and rfps do mix. It just depends on the kind of RFP and the developers themselves to determine just how well they mix.
SourceXchange was great until it went dark. We got some great proposals to some Jabber open source development RFPs there. Collab.net has picked up the slack so that's an option too.
In general, I'd recommend trying to find the associated developer email lists for open source projects (or, of course, the Jabber conference rooms if they have them!) and post there. Can't think that would upset people.
For Jabber, send your RFP to the JDEV email list. Go to http://mailman.jabber.org/listinfo/jdev for info.
. I've actually managed a number of Jabber open source projects so talk to me too! (bauer@michaelbauer.com)
*DISCLAIMER* I work for Jabber.com. Thought I'd take a few moments to respond to a few things.
1. jabber.com hired pretty much all of the original jabber.org developers.
At one time a lot of different people worked for jabber.com but right now pretty much all of the original jabber.org developers DON'T work for jabber.com. And most all of them work on the open source code anyway.
2. The jabber.org guys changed away from GPL to jabber.com's own JOSL ("jabber open source license").
It's more we like adding onto, not changing away from GPL. Like many other Open Source Licenses JOSL allows dual-licensing. Best of both worlds.
3. It is unclear (to me) if you contribute to jabber.org how/if your work will be pulled into jabber.com.
You're work's under your own copyright. Like other open source code, you agree to submit your changes for inclusion in a derivative open source work but that's all. That work will have to be open source too. We can't use your stuff without your permission in any other way. No one can.
4. jabber.com is the "commercial" version of jabber.org. You pay them for it and they give various kinds of support. They've supposedly done alot of testing on it.
Yep. Following some of the best open source business examples.
5. jabber.com is a completely different codebase than jabber.org. (for example .com uses pthreads and .org uses pth different thread libs)). The .com people are trying to add clustering and scalability that .org's code base doesn't have. I'm not sure if they're giving that back to .org
Not completely, no. And a pthreads version of the .com code has already been released to open source.
6. I'm skeptical as to how much .org will continue to thrive (as opposed to before .com) now that its main developers are working for .com on a different code base.
There's no two ways about this: jabber.org will thrive. We're doing a number of things to insure this, most importantly creating the Jabber Foundation, modeled along the lines of the Apache Foundation. We don't have all the answers on balancing commercial and open source relationships. We're open to all kinds of suggestions on how to do this. But know this: we are bound and determined to commit the resources to insure the Project grows.
7. As of a month ago, the jabber.com server didn't support the msn/yahoo/aim connections because that code is contained in "transports" modules designed to work with jabber.org's vastly different pth-based code base. And my understanding was it would be a "couple of quarter" before they're in. When you try out jabber.com's open server and see that it does appear to connect to msn/yahoo/aim, the way they are doing it is they are running a jabber.org server side-by-side with the jabber.com server and doing a jabber-jabber intermediate transport (ie the .com server is relying on the .org server to do the msn/yahoo/aim connections). I'm saying this is good or bad, but it is definitely a factor if you're considering buying a jabber.com server and support to allow your customers to connect to aim/yahoo/msn.
We're all working on the best way to do this. I think you'll see some progress sooner than later.
8. jabber.com won't sell support for aim/msn/yahoo because they can't "indemnify" it (or whatever) - they can't supposedly guarantee the connectivity. While it is true they can't guarantee the connectivity (until aim/yahoo/msn license it) it seems to me they can still sell it while explicitly stating they can't guarantee it. (I believe Odigo does - odigo.com is another IM solution that sells server, client, custom IM stuff).
See above.
Hey, if you have any questions, I'm bauer at jabber.com.
Jabber.org does define the direction of the technology. I think it's better to think of this as support rather than guide.
Jabber.org and Jabber.com (and any other parties would be most certainly welcome) are working together to establish a Jabber Foundation along the lines of the Apache and Gnome Foundations to assist in addressing many of the issues surrounding Jabber being raised here. We've just completed a survey to help us gather some suggestions for addressing these issues and have gotten some great results. One of the many initiatives we're undertaking, in addition to improved documentation, enhanced client development, and extended user involvement, is formal support for the ongoing IMPP work, in particular CPIM, SIP and BEEP. If you'd like more information, email me or info@jabber.org. Peace!
Some major initiatives are coming to address this dearth.
Right. Like you can tell /. to do anything.