[Foundation-l] [Wikitech-l] Google Summer of Code

[Dirk Riehle]

At 17.04.2006, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>Dirk Riehle wrote:
>
> >>can falter.  Additionally, as the Mozilla note mentioned,
> >>contributions that aren't part of the mainline will likely bitrot.  (I
> >>don't have a solution to this; just a cautionary note.)
> >>
> >>
> >Well, the main solution is to create an ecosystem where people get
> >hired to work (full-time) on providing such extensions (or additions
> >to the mainline) to MediaWiki. Only this setup can provide some continuity.
>...
>What could be more important is to ensure that anything done for free
>stays free.  It would be shameful to have volunteer efforts tied up by
>someone else's patents.


Is that mostly a legal concern? (I.e. ambiguity of OSS licenses?)

I firmly believe that "commercial open-source software" won't fly in 
the long run; most companies won't reach escape velocity. (Commercial 
OSS defined here as software where a company keeps control over the 
software, e.g. MySQL's dual-license model. MySQL is a notable 
exception where it works because they got into the game early.)

What you need is an Eclipse Foundation like setup where large 
corporations/system integrators make money on complementary services 
and therefore can afford "altruistic" contributions to a real 
open-source project like MediaWiki. Well, not only "afford" but "have to". :-)

Dirk