[DRAFT 3]: Charter for the Open Source Committee

[Ean R . Schuessler]

On Sun, Nov 07, 1999 at 10:31:34AM -0500, Russell Nelson wrote:
> Ian has been handling it, but I had some questions of my own.  To wit:
> Why has the domain name not already been transferred?  What is the
> problem here, and why does SPI feel a unique responsibility for
> solving that problem?  Perhaps a problem exists, but it's *our*
> responsibility for fixing it, in which case why is SPI retaining
> control?

Well, frankly Russell I'm not sure if everybody has the same view of
the situation as you do. As confusing and frustrating as this whole
situation has been I find it hard to even have a sensible conversation
about it. Let me see if I can make any sense.

The Open Source trademark was originally registered by Bruce Perens
for the SPI corporation and the opensource.org domain was likewise
reserved by SPI. SPI then named Eric as the manager for the project.
After that a whole series of curious events occured that included the
attrition of 3/4 of the SPI board to the new formed OSI project. In
this whole muddle, however, no one took the time to cross t's and dot
i's in any real organized way. As a result, the only tangible effect
of the SPI/OSI meltdown was to move some people off one board and onto
another. So, I guess you and the other members of OSI may be a bit
suprised that SPI brushed itself off and reconstituted itself out of
the ranks of its membership, but I don't see why you should be.

Our members wrote the definintion of Free Software that OSI slapped 
its name on. We take that as some signal that our opinion is valuable
even though OSI tried to take away our voice in the matter. We have
always possessed the means to change this situation and we have, at
length, decided to do so. It may upset you that we now have our own
opinions and the machinery to voice them, but it is simply a fact of
life. I don't think anyone here wants to prevent you from being
involved in the Open Source effort, so don't be upset if we also want
to get a little more involved. The fact that we posses something that
you want is an issue that ultimatly can only be blamed on the way that
your fellow board members comported themselves with the SPI community.

Sorry,
E

-- 
__________________________________________________________________
Ean Schuessler                                 A guy running Linux
Novare International Inc.                  A company running Linux
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