Captain Oblivious

I won't rehash all the history here, but I want you all to go, right now, and read this proposal on the new OpenNTF licensing and project release process. You need an OpenNTF user account, so if you've somehow neglected to get one so far (really?!? What ARE you thinking?!?), create one - it's simple. Then read the proposal.

Go ahead. I'm waiting. Right-click and open it in a new tab, read it and then come back here.

Really. Get over there.

OK, now that you've read it (...), here's the thing: this proposal neatly solves the biggest concerns that some of us have had with these new plans by allowing project owners to choose their preferred software license. AL2, like IBM prefers? Fine. GPL, like some of OpenNTF's more prolific project owners prefer? Fine. No, really fine. Not just sort of allowed.

Huh? Right. Sounds a bit dry. But it's really, really important to developers, partners, customers, and the Big Blue elephant in the corner.

You may have seen something that sounded vaguely like this proposal discussed or theorized earlier, with the basic concept being to leave the existing site up and working exactly the same way and not force anybody to use the new process (where the new process consisted roughly of: use AL2, get your company to verify that you're allowed to do this, submit your code for review, and if all your ducks are in a row your project shows up in the new catalog of approved applications). But the 'legacy' (heh) or unmanaged or unverified or ... applications would not show up in the application catalog that's being created. They would only show up the way they show up now.

Yeah, you're right - that would make non-AL2 projects look pretty sad and pathetic. And that's NOT what's being proposed now. What's changed? The non-AL2 projects are no longer considered second class citizens. The new front end release UI (approach to finding applications) and workflow that will be available in the release process can now be used by all of the projects. And when I say new UI, while it's still a gleam in proverbial eyes, think about the App Store and Ubuntu's approach to loading applications from repositories. The AL2 projects AND the non-AL2 (GPL or ...) project catalogs would actually inherit from the same design template. They'd be aligned side-by-side on the site, even.

So what do the GPL projects NOT get? They won't get code contributions from IBM and some other companies. That's it.

Oh, and the step requiring your company's approval is being modified to put the onus on the individual instead (the way the Apache Foundation does it), though that's not in this particular proposal. It's discussed elsewhere in the IP forum.

Now, here's the key point. None of these items are settled. They are proposed. If you like this approach better than the previous ones, say so. Speak up. Or forever hold, um, something...