Re: [OSCOM] Some questions about open-source project governance

Boris Kraft <[email protected]>
Newsgroups gmane.comp.cms.oscom
Message-ID <[email protected]>
On 06.10.2005, at 16:47, Tony Byrne - CMS Watch wrote:

>  - Is some sort of foundation an essential step in the maturation of an
> open-source project?  It seems like a lot of major OS CMS packages are
> going that way.

It might depend on where you come from, but I think in the end, its 
useful. Some people are happier with a foundation than with a company 
(or with either). After all, the foundation is usually non-profit, 
which might be useful in itself, and it hopefully survives any single 
vendor that might  have initiated the project.

But I don't think that it needs one to produce great stuff. Its more 
once the great stuff is done and people move on to other things that 
the foundation might prove valuable.


>  - If so, what's the best way initially to create a board to govern an
> open-source project?

no idea but I think Apache has all of this spelled out in detail on 
their web site

>  - How do you balance broad community participation on the one hand, 
> and
> code quality & application simplicity on the other?

What is community? The term is broad, for me community is everyone that 
provides feedback in any form to our project, even if its just 
answering questions on the mailing list. But for code quality, you will 
need excellent people and a tight hand on commit rights (that 
technical) as well as a clear scope where you want to go with your 
project and what the philosophy behind the product is. For us, its ease 
of use and being standards based. Less is more. Provide a great basis, 
that empowers users to do their own stuff. If that is spelled out 
somewhere, its easier to make decisions.



>  - Do projects that create an architecture for 3rd-party, add-on
> "plug-ins" or "products" have a leg up here?

Yes of course.

> If so, how do you respond
> to inevitable community demands to "certify" add-on modules?

Just do it :-)


>  - Do open-source infrastructure (webserver, DB, operating system)
> projects have an easier go of this than CMS packages, despite the
> formers' large size?  It seems to me they do, particularly in setting
> scope.
>

no idea

Regards
Boris Kraft
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