Center white paper

[ReneK]

Yes, Peter, I am definitely looking forward to seeing someone else's vision but my own

[DGDanforth]

Rene,
I am not comfortable with the 'juristic' facet you mention.
I would prefer to emphasize 'cooperation' rather than legality.

[Robert]

I agree with most of the comments on this thread, but have a few thoughts about "Stable".

An important aspect of stability that wasn't on Rene's list was frequency and amount of change. In my experience people can be very conservative and resist change.
So I think we need a 'stable' version that is essentially a frozen version of 1.6, but with bug fixes. No new 'features'. And we need a way of 'reviewing' the bug fixes so that the user community has confidence that they can 'safely' update to the latest bug-fixed version.

Only in this way can we hope to keep the majority of users using a common version, which I consider essential. Without it we are not a community, but an anarchic group of individuals.

But we also want a vision for a 'better' future with major new capabilities (64-bit is an example). So we need to also work on a new version which is not stable in this conservative sense. But, in time (12 months, 18 months, ...) it could become the new stable version and maybe most people could be persuaded to make a big, but infrequent, upgrade.

For me the priorities are to sort out the 'stable' version quickly, and developing the mission statement and working practices to go along with the major new version (or versions) may take rather longer. Indeed I can imaging it evolving for ever.

Regards

[ReneK]

Robert,

I agree to most of what you said, and basically I wanted to convey this in my vision but somehow failed.

The one point where I disagree is "when do we need the first stable version". While I understand that you want it pretty fast, I think that we have more time for it, since the last official OMI version is but a few days old. But that's just my opinion without fully understanding your reasons for pushing a stable version as soon as possible.

BTW OberonCore objected to the word "stable", and I think I can see the reason behind: As long as the interface does not change, changes do not affect the user and thus there is no need for "stable".

This would mean that bug fixes could be published immidiately, no need for a waiting period or something "stable".

While this would be true for some bugs, others may make a work around necessary, and in these cases, I think it is vital to know the difference between what I already have and what is fixed in the version I am about to download, or even if it is still the same version without looking through all of the changes first.

Also, just because someone thought that he had fixed a bug, doesn't necessary mean that the bug fix was successful AND without negative side effects. Someone has to make sure that a bug fix has been sufficiently tested to make sure that it is OK, and that it is sufficiently documented. This, for me, makes the difference between "released" and "unreleased" version, if one doesn't want to use the word "stable".

[ReneK]

I am not comfortable with the 'juristic' facet you mention.
I would prefer to emphasize 'cooperation' rather than legality.

Could you quote the passages you are not comfortable with, and add how you would change that to emphasize the cooperation more, so that I can get a feeling of what your vision is?

[Robert]

Some reasons for wanting a quick release for our first "Post Oms" version:

- I don't think that the Oms 1.6 release is satisfactory because it omits several long-known bug fixes that are available in other currently available versions - eg Zinn's version on CPC.

- It would be good to have a tangible achievement from the new "organisation" - by which I mean both the center and a wider contributing / interested community. In that way the "organisation" (we should have a name but I don't have a good one to suggest just now) would earn some respect from the user community, which would motivate more people to get involved and hopefully gain momentum for the future.

- There are several Post Oms versions (as mentioned in correspondence from myself, Zinn, and others) and this risks fragmentation unless an 'official' version is produced quickly. I think (you may disagree) that fragmentation risks weakening our already fragile community, which is why I am keen to avoid / minimise it. I don't know what 'Official' means, but the current best hope of giving it some meaning is that it is endorsed by ourselves (the Center).

- Conservative people (and I include myself here when I am acting on behalf of my work) are reluctant to change to new versions, especially to new versions with no clear maintenance or support path. While I do not expect the new "organisation" to make any formal, legal, or financial commitment to support, it can give end users (customers) some level of confidence. After all, we are a group of people with an explicit interest and a long history of taking care to improve BlackBox. It is relatively easy for customers to believe that when they expose problems of general concern that reasonable remedies are likely. For free (gratis) software no more can be expected.

- After this 1.6+ "Foundation" version is established we can begin to think about 'enhanced' versions. If these two ideas are allowed to overlap there is a strong temptation that new features will be added to the organisation's first version, thus unsettling conservative users who do not want to risk the reliability of their current setups.

Too much said!

Robert

[ReneK]

Some reasons for wanting a quick release for our first "Post Oms" version:
<snip>
Too much said!

Robert

Not too much said, Robert, that was exactly what I needed to understand the problem. Thank you. I agree.

[DGDanforth]

I am not comfortable with the 'juristic' facet you mention.
I would prefer to emphasize 'cooperation' rather than legality.

Could you quote the passages you are not comfortable with, and add how you would change that to emphasize the cooperation more, so that I can get a feeling of what your vision is?

Here is what you wrote

What is the Blackbox Center?
As of now, the Blackbox center is a loose joint venture of 10 juristic persons (“members”) dedicated to the mission, the vison and the values of Blackbox Center. It is a de facto board of directors. In the future, it could be necessary to transform the Center to a juristic person of its own, in order to provide a framework for intellectual property and financial contributions and simultaneously limit potential legal exposure for our project committers. The members spearhead projects that, through a collaborative and meritocratic development process deliver enterprise-grade, freely available software products that attract large communities of users. We operate under a licence to make it easy for all users, commercial and individual, to deploy our products.

I would say

What is the Blackbox Center?
As of now, the Blackbox center is a loose joint venture of 10 persons (“members”) dedicated to the mission, the vision and the values of Blackbox Center. It is a de facto board of directors. In the future, it could be necessary to transform the Center to a single entity, in order to provide a framework for intellectual property and financial contributions and simultaneously limit potential legal exposure for our project members. The members spearhead projects that, through a collaborative and meritocratic development process deliver enterprise-grade, freely available software products that attract large communities of users. We operate under a license to make it easy for all users, commercial and individual, to deploy our products.

[ReneK]

I would say
What is the Blackbox Center?
As of now, the Blackbox center is a loose joint venture of 10 persons (“members”) dedicated to the mission, the vision and the values of Blackbox Center. It is a de facto board of directors. In the future, it could be necessary to transform the Center to a single entity, in order to provide a framework for intellectual property and financial contributions and simultaneously limit potential legal exposure for our project members. The members spearhead projects that, through a collaborative and meritocratic development process deliver enterprise-grade, freely available software products that attract large communities of users. We operate under a license to make it easy for all users, commercial and individual, to deploy our products.

I think the words highlighted are the relevant changes, right (thank you for taking care of typos)?

I can live with that, I just have a few observations:

Of the current 10 members, one is not a "person" (as in "one man" or "one woman"). OberonCore is a community of its own joining with us as one entity. Someone said that he dislikes this, and that only persons should be members. This is simply not what we are, though, and I didn't want to choose a formulation that would take away OberonCore's right to participate as a community/single entity.

So I borrowed the distinction of natural person and juristic person to express just that.

Does your rewording do justice to this fact?

Conerning the possible future development of the center, I think that as a group/entity we will have to be able to

* own a website
* collect and own money
* own intellectual property

Here in Austria, only a juristic person can do that. A juristic person can either be a natural person (one human being) or some kind of corporate body, foundation, etc.

This "corporate body" can be tax exempt or it may need to pay taxes, depending on the juristic form it takes.

I think that this is not unique to Austria, but probably through most of the EU. I have no idea about US laws, Russian laws or Australian laws relevant to this question.

But I know for a fact that if we collect money without any legal standing, almost any country in the world will have a problem with it.

So far, we have collected $199, which is not a big issue, but it could well be that we need or get more in the future, and usually one should think about juristic questions before taking money.

But if you think that the word "entity" takes care of these issues, I'm fine with it.

[Ivan Denisov]

In Russia person can own web-site, collect money and own intellectual properties. However more honest to register organization, for any member feel him self equal in "center".

Before we make the charter (rules) we can not officially register non-profit organization in Russia and I think this point is obligatory in any country.

Until we not make the charter there will be no problem with the money collection if the donations will be small. Maybe I will pay 13% fee in the end of next year if fiscal inspectorate will find this money. If they not find, I will not pay. There are no criminal responsibility for unpaid fee in Russia, so the biggest punishment is 40% from 13% of our balance = 18.2% of total collected amount of money.