Hello, I don't know if "pascal" is me or someone else but I'm also one Pascal so I answer ;)

Sorry for the long mail...

I agree with this kind of governance as long as XWiki.org keeps fully free and brings the best and latest code with LGPL license. I agree that companies contributing to XWiki could be rewarded by having some "visibility" on xwiki.org site. I agree with the fact that XWiki SAS needs to earn more money based on XWiki.org because if it earns more money, XWiki will go further etc... The limit between commercial product and free software is not easy to define and to manage... Being an opensource company is really hard, isn't it? The only thing I want XWiki SAS is to keep going as a real opensource company for which the community project is the base of everything and which contains the best of breed of XWiki SAS knowledge. I would be disappointed to see you becoming a company such as the ones I can see for which opensource is just a facade or a marketting argument without any real community development and support. Jboss is not exactly one of those but they give me the impression of going progressively in this direction and after one year working intensively with their professional projects and support, I'm really disappointed because I see that their opensource and community support seems declining or even seems willingly bad sometimes and focused on only some "visible" projects. I really wonder if opensoure is not getting corrupted by such companies after all... With XWiki, I've been able to develop some little professional projects with the best code coming from XWiki without thinking that, if my project could make or not money, I would have to pay, in any case, the X thousands $ just for the license. My idea was to contribute to XWiki through these projects and if I could earn some money I would contribute to XWiki with something more than my little braincells :)... Sorry about that but the projects I have achieved with XWiki have never gone further than pilots and I have never been able to make a living with that :)... What a shame, isn't it?;) All of that just to explain that the fully open status of XWiki allowed me to bring my ideas into reality and I think your professional but free status is a great attractor for lots of people. So as long as you keep that in mind and in facts, I will keep supporting you and maybe more...

Pascal On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 5:41 PM, Guillaume Lerouge <guillaume(a)xwiki.com wrote: questions: _______________________________________________ devs mailing list devs(a)xwiki.org http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

Hi, On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 3:44 PM, Vincent Massol <vincent(a)massol.net> wrote: Sounds good to me. Note: I work for XWiki SAS too. I'd love to get feedback from people outside the company - Denis, Caleb, Pascal, Christophe, Jérémie, Ricardo and all the others: it's time to join the discussion! ;-) Guillaume

Hi Vincent, It sounds pretty good to me. There are a few items we need to make sure we implement right (making it clear what's commercial and what's open on xwiki.org, the 'rules' for getting the offer listed, etc), but those are matters of the actual implementation and not the idea itself. On 12/04/2009 04:44 PM, Vincent Massol wrote: I think this could be optional as it is included in the support XWiki SAS offers for XWiki.org and therefore 'rewarded' through the advertising space.

That would be a +1. Thanks, Anca Luca XWiki committer, XWiki SAS employed developer. _______________________________________________ devs mailing list devs(a)xwiki.org http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

On Dec 4, 2009, at 3:44 PM, Vincent Massol wrote: +1 +1 +1 And I agree with Marius' remark about the fact that only products that are built on top of XWiki could be advertised +1 This however is tricky... In order to define what "contribute most" means we need a metric, and that's not an easy thing to do. Maybe we could use a linear combination of weights assigned to the priority an issue has and an index for its "perceived" difficulty (I saw people tagging issues with their difficulty when handling the backlog in a Scrum-oriented process). Maybe LOC-count could go into the mix (the less the better :)) And maybe also time should influence the result (company that had a punctual high-quality contribution should not be listed forever if it stops contributing) The ranking is calculated wrt to this combination and a minimum threshold should be reached in order to be ranked. I don't really know how to handle this, but if we propose a ranking we need also to propose a policy about how it is calculated.

+1 +1 +1 -Fabio

Hi Vincent, We had already talk in the past about that matters. Globally, what you proposed seems good and really honest. But until we see a real implementation, it is difficult to know if it could have or not a negative effect on the way the product is seen by open-source adepts. I completely agree with Pascal, and I also feel that if what you propose is well done, it could be a win-win-win operation, for XWiki SAS, other contributing companies like we are, and the end-user of our products. My main concerns about your proposal is the same as Fabio, it is about the ranking of contributors to receive what you have called the good spot. I feel that the policy could be really difficult to write, since there are many ways to contributes. Moreover, wasting time in ranking discussion does not go in the direction of improving the open-source project. We could go into endless discussion on that point, and I wonder if this point is not only the result of XWiki SAS marketing departing pushing toward to receive the good spot ! So, even if Softec/eGuilde could expect also to receive a good spot, I think that it could be simpler to treat every advertising at the same level, with a uniform presentation, and showing true facts only like the number of bugs reports, patch contributions, realizations, and so on. Having a list freely sortable on such true facts, could produce a somewhat variable ranking that does not suffer discussion, since providing bugs reports, patch or using the product intensively all contribute to XWiki success and are measurable values. Combining them to get a single ranking is really a more difficult to agree upon.

Another way to increase the visibility of contributor could be links from there contributions on XWiki.org, like links from a macro, plug-ins, documentation,... ; but we should than be careful to not clutter the interface. However, this could be implemented has an extension of the way XWiki shows the all authors of a given page, showing avatars, and linking to their listings for example, and this could improve visibility of XWiki SAS as this seems to be one of your goal, without being dishonest.

Regarding point 6), I am not sure this is so pertinent, since there is many other place where the project could have been hosted, like open-source repositories (or on my own infrastructure, wdyt to see my logo on all pages ;) ),

Therefore I am not sure that XWiki SAS should be shown on the bottom of every page for that. Once against this smell like marketing pushing you and I feel the visibility of XWiki SAS would therefore be too present IMHO.

I would like to conclude on the fact that from our previous discussion on that subject, I had really appreciate your concerns about keeping the independence of the project from the commercial part of your company, and your commitment toward the open-source community is a really good example to follow. I really hope that we will be able to find altogether the best way to implement your proposal to improve the XWiki Open-Source project as whole.

With kind regards, -- Denis Gervalle Softec SA CEO eGuilde SaRL CTO On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 3:44 PM, Vincent Massol <vincent(a)massol.net> wrote: > Hi everyone (devs and users), > > While we have a clear governance for write access to our source > repository (http://dev.xwiki.org), we're missing a clear governance > for xwiki.org. The idea is to address mainly the following 2 questions: > 1) who "owns" it and thus "controls" (or rather provides direction > for) its content > 2) can it be used for business advertising (support, paid packages, > consulting services) > > Bit of History about XWiki SAS > ======================== > > - XWiki SAS (http://xwiki.com) is the company founded by Ludovic > Dubost the creator of XWiki (I'm the CTO of XWiki SAS in addition to > being a committer here). > - Most of the active contributors are also employed and paid by XWiki > SAS to develop the XWiki software. Today that's > -- 12.5 committers (developers) > -- 1 open source product manager (see > http://markmail.org/thread/ggaaw4u6yyci4oan > for its definition) > -- 1 designer > -- 1 tester/technical writer > - XWiki SAS sells services around the open source software, see > http://www.xwiki.com/xwiki/bin/view/Services/ > - XWiki SAS truly believes and understands open source, see > http://www.xwiki.com/xwiki/bin/view/About/Values > -- I also wrote a blog post on this some time back: > http://massol.myxwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Blog/XWikiSASAndOpenSource > - XWiki SAS has promised "not to do evil" ;), see its manifesto at > http://www.xwiki.com/xwiki/bin/view/About/Manifesto > - XWiki SAS is paying for the servers and maintenance of xwiki.org, > myxwiki.org, the maven repo, the svn repo, the hudson build serversn > the free JUG farm, and more > > Issue at hand > =========== > > XWiki SAS would like to generate more revenue to be able to increase > the development pace of the XWiki software. We'd like to fund even > more the development of XWiki, so that it becomes an even better > product. We've asked you what you'd like to see in the future in XWiki > and you've answered on this survey result: > http://www.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Blog/Features+Survey+Results > > We'd like to implement those features as fast as possible. > > For this we need to ensure that users interested in commercial > services find easily the way to http://xwiki.com, even when they > arrive on xwiki.org. > > This is true for XWiki SAS's services but also for any company willing > to offer services around the XWiki open source project. There's no > magic. Developers need to be paid when they work full time on some > project. We need a commercial ecosystem around XWiki for it to > progress as quickly as its competitors (the collaboration market). We > need to allow for commercial companies the ability to generate revenue > from their work on the XWiki open source project. However we also want > to continue ensuring that all the XWiki development is done in open > source, under a LGPL license. > > Governance Proposal > ================= > > 1) xwiki.org is controlled by the XWiki committers. This means that > important changes brought to it should be discussed/vote on the list, > using the same practices as for code commits > 2) xwiki.org stays open in edit mode to all external contributors (and > XWiki committers continue to monitor it to remove spam, etc) > 3) we agree to start with 3 zones where companies can advertise their > commercial offers on top of the XWiki open source product: > -- On the download page (for business packages, subscriptions, hosting) > -- On the support page (for services: support, consulting) > -- (still to be defined) Possibly on a "Products" tab in the new > horizontal navigation. The idea would be to do as jboss.org is doing. > Projects are open source and community and Products are commercial > 4) the company offerings are listed by their amount of contributions > to the XWiki open source project. The company that contributes most > (XWiki SAS today) gets the best spots (top of the list, bigger space) > 5) Companies who want to be listed should provide some proof of their > contributions to the XWiki open source project > 6) XWiki SAS gets some acknowledgment for paying for the xwiki.org > server/maintenance of it. Probably somewhere in the footer of the site > or on side panel somewhere > 7) xwiki.org should always remain a site for the xwiki open source > community > > Conclusion > ========= > > We want to stress that this proposal is not about XWiki SAS making a > commercial takeover of the xwiki.org site. > > It's about recognizing that if the XWiki open source software > progresses quickly today, it's thanks to contributors but also for a > very large proportion to companies paying developers to work on it, > either directly (like XWiki SAS or other companies that have > developers contributing) or indirectly (by paying for example XWiki > SAS or other companies to work on specific features). > > It's also about recognizing that XWiki SAS is happy to see other > companies willing to contribute to the progress of the XWiki open > source project and thus to provide a place for these companies to be > visible too. > > I hope that all our contributors but also users of the XWiki Open > Source software will find this proposal acceptable and I welcome any > feedback on it. > > Thanks > -Vincent Massol > Hat 1: XWiki SAS CTO > Hat 2: XWiki committer

Hi Vincent, On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 18:10, Vincent Massol<vincent(a)massol.net> wrote: That was not the most difficult one to rank of course :) * The number of _active_ committers could be a very good metric for the That is for sure a real, just hope it is not to limited... but it has a real adavantage, being clear ! +1 +1 Well, I feel sorry if I have hurt you with my remarks, that was not my intend. I hope you have noticed my commitment to the XWiki Project, and my comments was there to prevent others to have the feel that the project is less open than it is really. Footer links is an every page advertisement, and I really think it should be used very carefully on open source sites.

I completely agree that XWiki SAS has a real merit of supporting XWiki as it does. What I mainly say here is that the hosting work for xwiki.org is not what make the merit of XWiki SAS since there are many open place well suited to host Open Source projects. So when the number of commiters goes higher, some could argue that we should vote for where to host it. (I am not saying this should be changed) This is really different for myxwiki.org, and there you are really free to advertise more on the hosting side of your participation, in the footer as you proposed, since this is the may part of it. BTW, I advertise XWiki.org in the footer of the sites of my clients when they allow me to do so using the Powered by logo ! And with my current experience, I can also realize how hard maintaining a farm could be. Of course, this is perfect. I have not any doubt on your honesty in that matter. That is precisely why I had thought you have had some influence from marketing :) I hope this made my whole remark less hurting and mades my thoughts clearer. > >> I would like to conclude on the fact that from our previous discussion on >> that subject, I had really appreciate your concerns about keeping the >> independence of the project from the commercial part of your company, and >> your commitment toward the open-source community is a really good example > to >> follow. I really hope that we will be able to find altogether the best > way >> to implement your proposal to improve the XWiki Open-Source project as >> whole. > > Yes I'm confident about this too! > > Thanks a lot for your feedback > -Vincent > >> >> With kind regards, >> >> -- >> Denis Gervalle >> Softec SA CEO >> eGuilde SaRL CTO >> >> On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 3:44 PM, Vincent Massol<vincent(a)massol.net> > wrote: >> >>> Hi everyone (devs and users), >>> >>> While we have a clear governance for write access to our source >>> repository (http://dev.xwiki.org), we're missing a clear governance >>> for xwiki.org. The idea is to address mainly the following 2 questions: >>> 1) who "owns" it and thus "controls" (or rather provides direction >>> for) its content >>> 2) can it be used for business advertising (support, paid packages, >>> consulting services) >>> >>> Bit of History about XWiki SAS >>> ======================== >>> >>> - XWiki SAS (http://xwiki.com) is the company founded by Ludovic >>> Dubost the creator of XWiki (I'm the CTO of XWiki SAS in addition to >>> being a committer here). >>> - Most of the active contributors are also employed and paid by XWiki >>> SAS to develop the XWiki software. Today that's >>> -- 12.5 committers (developers) >>> -- 1 open source product manager (see >>> http://markmail.org/thread/ggaaw4u6yyci4oan >>> for its definition) >>> -- 1 designer >>> -- 1 tester/technical writer >>> - XWiki SAS sells services around the open source software, see >>> http://www.xwiki.com/xwiki/bin/view/Services/ >>> - XWiki SAS truly believes and understands open source, see >>> http://www.xwiki.com/xwiki/bin/view/About/Values >>> -- I also wrote a blog post on this some time back: >>> http://massol.myxwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Blog/XWikiSASAndOpenSource >>> - XWiki SAS has promised "not to do evil" ;), see its manifesto at >>> http://www.xwiki.com/xwiki/bin/view/About/Manifesto >>> - XWiki SAS is paying for the servers and maintenance of xwiki.org, >>> myxwiki.org, the maven repo, the svn repo, the hudson build serversn >>> the free JUG farm, and more >>> >>> Issue at hand >>> =========== >>> >>> XWiki SAS would like to generate more revenue to be able to increase >>> the development pace of the XWiki software. We'd like to fund even >>> more the development of XWiki, so that it becomes an even better >>> product. We've asked you what you'd like to see in the future in XWiki >>> and you've answered on this survey result: >>> http://www.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Blog/Features+Survey+Results >>> >>> We'd like to implement those features as fast as possible. >>> >>> For this we need to ensure that users interested in commercial >>> services find easily the way to http://xwiki.com, even when they >>> arrive on xwiki.org. >>> >>> This is true for XWiki SAS's services but also for any company willing >>> to offer services around the XWiki open source project. There's no >>> magic. Developers need to be paid when they work full time on some >>> project. We need a commercial ecosystem around XWiki for it to >>> progress as quickly as its competitors (the collaboration market). We >>> need to allow for commercial companies the ability to generate revenue >>> from their work on the XWiki open source project. However we also want >>> to continue ensuring that all the XWiki development is done in open >>> source, under a LGPL license. >>> >>> Governance Proposal >>> ================= >>> >>> 1) xwiki.org is controlled by the XWiki committers. This means that >>> important changes brought to it should be discussed/vote on the list, >>> using the same practices as for code commits >>> 2) xwiki.org stays open in edit mode to all external contributors (and >>> XWiki committers continue to monitor it to remove spam, etc) >>> 3) we agree to start with 3 zones where companies can advertise their >>> commercial offers on top of the XWiki open source product: >>> -- On the download page (for business packages, subscriptions, hosting) >>> -- On the support page (for services: support, consulting) >>> -- (still to be defined) Possibly on a "Products" tab in the new >>> horizontal navigation. The idea would be to do as jboss.org is doing. >>> Projects are open source and community and Products are commercial >>> 4) the company offerings are listed by their amount of contributions >>> to the XWiki open source project. The company that contributes most >>> (XWiki SAS today) gets the best spots (top of the list, bigger space) >>> 5) Companies who want to be listed should provide some proof of their >>> contributions to the XWiki open source project >>> 6) XWiki SAS gets some acknowledgment for paying for the xwiki.org >>> server/maintenance of it. Probably somewhere in the footer of the site >>> or on side panel somewhere >>> 7) xwiki.org should always remain a site for the xwiki open source >>> community >>> >>> Conclusion >>> ========= >>> >>> We want to stress that this proposal is not about XWiki SAS making a >>> commercial takeover of the xwiki.org site. >>> >>> It's about recognizing that if the XWiki open source software >>> progresses quickly today, it's thanks to contributors but also for a >>> very large proportion to companies paying developers to work on it, >>> either directly (like XWiki SAS or other companies that have >>> developers contributing) or indirectly (by paying for example XWiki >>> SAS or other companies to work on specific features). >>> >>> It's also about recognizing that XWiki SAS is happy to see other >>> companies willing to contribute to the progress of the XWiki open >>> source project and thus to provide a place for these companies to be >>> visible too. >>> >>> I hope that all our contributors but also users of the XWiki Open >>> Source software will find this proposal acceptable and I welcome any >>> feedback on it. >>> >>> Thanks >>> -Vincent Massol >>> Hat 1: XWiki SAS CTO >>> Hat 2: XWiki committer