[Zope-dev] Open letters, hijacking and the like

[Danny William Adair]

Hello Clark,

I see your point here, and I understand your problem.
But I do not share your opinion, especially when it comes to its conclusion. 
(branching)

Zope Corp. is not living in a dream world:

> On the one hand ZC is this munificent benefactor of
> Zope.
>
> On the other hand ZC is this poor cash strapped little
> company that can't afford to take any interest in Zope
> unless they have an immediate incentive.
>
> YOU CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS DUDE. I AM SORRY BUT THIS
> IS JUST NOT POSSIBLE.

I have zope.org, and I have zope.com
It's the same company, isn't it?
It's the same people on the same payroll, isn't it?

If I go to zope.com, I know I will definitely spend money, probably a lot of 
money. If I go to zope.org, I know I'm not going to spend a single dime. 
Guess where you'll find me? Now guess where'll find others. This separation 
makes sense, and imho it should have been done earlier! Now that it's late, 
Zope Corp has to work on its image, which would have been easier a year ago. 
(I think the new CEO's "first approach" towards the developers community was 
pretty "unfruitful". Should I put a smiley here? Naaaa... He has learned 
quickly, I even forgot his name (whoops, who said that?))

I don't think ZC is a poor cash strapped little company, though it is still 
quite small. But in fact, this is totally irrelevant: No investor (see last 
line of this mail) will throw money out the window, whether it's a lot or a 
little. He wants it back x20, better in 2 or 3 three years than in 5 or 6. 
And I don't see why Zope Corp should pay "high-end" full-time developers to 
"keep the fraggles entertained" (yeah I'm one of the fraggles, sometimes). I 
do appreciate that they snip off some of their weekly time, and support the 
community(which has helped Zope Corp a lot in the past imho). I can not and 
will not pay them for this and only this, and I don't see how you get the 
idea that ZC can.

>
> If ZC is the benefactor of zope, why can't they
> develop a plan that is independent of day to day money
> making?

Open-Sourcing was a nice move, since (among a lot of other things) it opens 
up business opportunities for other people. Still, it costs a lot of money to 
maintain an Open-Source project of this size.

Zope is the BASIS of ZC's consulting and services work, so how could you 
possibly make this independent from each other?

You can listen to Paul Everitts thoughts on this if you take a look at the 
interview he had with O'Reilly Network (quite a while ago). Or maybe just 
wait a moment...

>
> If ZC is this little company that does not have the
> resources to provide true leadership, then why does
> Zope need them?

I see true leadership, but I also see _mutual_ benefits. I also believe that 
Zope would have never come that far if DC/ZC hadn't backed it. What it seems 
to me that you are trying to do here is take something away you never been 
responsible of in the first place. If there was no ZC/DC, there wouldn't have 
been a Zope, and this is the truth that you deny.

I respect ZC for the responsibility they are taking more than I envy anyone 
of copyrights. The ZPL has all you can ask for.

Set up a website and promote it as the "alternative" development site for 
Zope and upcoming versions of Zope. Good luck! With "after hour" developers 
alone you will wallow in it for years. How many people would feel attracted, 
which people, and why? What would developers get on this site? What would be 
the "added value" of the site? Copies of documents that people have written 
that had been paid by a company (ZC)?

And who will oversee the development cycle as a whole? Me? You? When? After 
"work"? So if you take the whole day for this, who's gonna pay for your costs 
of living? Oh, an investor. What should he invest in? Why? How do you plan to 
get his money back (x20)? Ohhhhhh..... You want to do this WHILE you're at 
the other job.... :-)

ZC is a company "dude", and a company has a business plan. That plan either 
fits yours or it doesn't. Of course they're not playing with marbles.

ZOPE.ORG IS NOT ZC'S "HOBBY"
(but it looks like it's yours)

Customer to development company:
- "So what's the technical platform for this project?"
- "Zope"
- "Zope, uhu... Whose Software is that? Will this thing exist as long as our 
project exists? Where will we get support?"
- Ah well... The Software belongs to "zope.org", actually no one specific. 
It's open source, developed and maintained by people who find it a "nice" 
piece of software, and work on it after finishing their real job during the 
day. Support? Well there are a couple of email addresses on that site, I 
think they answer pretty quickly... Uh-huh..

Duuhhh...


I support ZC's approach. Most def.

btw, Check the "corporate guide for business decisions" (or something like 
that) on zope.org to see some of the benefits we as developers have from a 
corporate approach.

> ...
> 
>  Zope would not have  trouble finding corporate
> sponsors even from fortune 500 companies like IBM or
> HP.

You know about the recent investment that has been made, don't you?


Yours,
Danny

P.S.: Sorry for the bad structure. I was adding and adding, and I'm not very 
satisfied with the current form. Will send it now anyway, cos: I gotta go to 
work. Using Zope of course.