Next commentator please (this may well now be rather British in tone, but hey, I'm British!). Cheers Chris -----Original Message----- From: Matt R. Jezorek To: Chris Puttick Sent: 10/6/03 4:36 PM Subject: RE: [school-discuss] [Open Admin] SIF/XML tools for Data Transfer . On Mon, 2003-10-06 at 11:29, Chris Puttick wrote: > Can I return it as an OO.org doc? Makes commenting/modifying easier. > > I like writing letters; that's manager for you... > > -----Original Message----- > From: Matt R. Jezorek > To: schoolforge-discuss@schoolforge.net > Sent: 10/6/03 3:46 PM > Subject: Re: [school-discuss] [Open Admin] SIF/XML tools for Data Transfer. > > The letter to sun please correct it as I pretty much hate writing > letters :) > > > > To whom it may concern: > > In January 2002 EduStructures (http://www.edustructures.com) informed > the world that they had aquired the Sun Microsystems ZIS code JaZ and > J/SAL packages. It was informed to the public that Sun Microsystems > stipulated that the code remain open source and freely available. The > freely available code was hosted at opensif.org the OpenSIF project. > > > In more recent times EduStructures has forked the code you provided them > into trademarked closed source commercial software products. The > SIFWorks Platform. While this would be great and dandy during any other > time I would like to report the fact that they then closed the open > source project down claiming that their was not enough developer > support. Boasted that there was only 24 messages on the mailing list > during the year and downloads have went down. I will address each of > these issues to you now. > > > The lack of developer support may be true. However it is not the fault > of the open source community. If you look at the hoops you have to jump > thru to become a developer you will notice that not many open source > developers are willing to do that to submit a few patches. You had to > send a email to info@opensif.org and let them know what work you would > like to pursue, then wait for them to get back to you. After that if you > want to be a source contributor there was no public source code > repository. So you would everything had to be in the form of patches and > mailed to the owner of the file you are patching. This would be a big > headache if you patched multiple files over multiple owners. Then you > had to wait till it was merged into the tree by the owner. > > This is not exactly a good way to do open source development and attract > developers to the project. I also feel this is why the developer support > was low. While I understand you cant give everyone write access to a CVS > tree you can always give read access so people can keep up. Watch for > conflicts etc. Also no open bug database so no one knew where to start. > > > The part about only 24 messages on the list during the year is true. > However they neglect to say what those messages are on the list. Most of > them are messages like the one below > > > “From: "scottp1296" <scottp1296@y...> > Date: Sun Sep 21, 2003 4:41 am > Subject: Still no luck with opensif.org > > Am I the only one that can't connect to www.opensif.org? I still > get connection refused, so it looks like the host is up, but the > web server isn't running. > > I've tried contacting three different email addresses at > Edustructures, as well as Eric Peterson, but not one of them has > responded. > > Anyone have any other suggestions? > > > > Regards, > Scott” > > > The website just went down suddenly and no response was given except the > page you now find at http://www.opensif.org/. > > > Also claims that the downloads went down are correct as I am sure they > can provide stats. But as I know from running several open source > projects when you do not release often downloads go down. Only so many > people are willing to download a application that is old or no longer > working with the current specs. > > > All these excuses may be valid however it the eyes of the public it > appears that EduStructures did not actually want the code out in the > public domain as you can still not even find a old archive of the > release anywhere on the internet. In essense they killed the project > themselves by faint promotion and the hoops one had to jump thru to get > involved. > > > OpenSIF and the fact of having an open sourced ZIS server was a great > idea and desperatly needed. I would like to revive the project in the > true meaning of open source and provide a cvs tree, updated product, > working with the current SIF specification 1.1 and allow this project to > go forward. I have sent emails to EduStructures asking for the current > OpenSIF code as it was when the project died with little hope of > receiving it. I have also asked on the OpenSIF yahoo groups list for a > copy of the code if anyone had it. I have received no response nor do I > really expect one at this point. > > > I am writing you with the hopes that you would be able to step up and > help us the open source community obtain the codebase that you > rightfully gave with the stipulation that the code remain open source so > that I may revive the project and continue working on it. > > > Sincerely > > > Matthew R. Jezorek > > Executive Director > > Linux for Education > > matt@bluelinux.org > > <<letter_to_sun.sxw>>
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