[TriLUG] Novell jumps into Linux

[Roy Vestal]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Magnus" <chrish at trilug.org>
To: <trilug at trilug.org>
Sent: Wednesday, June 25, 2003 10:10 AM
Subject: Re: [TriLUG] Novell jumps into Linux


>IMHO the disconnection between Linux users & Linux developers is part
>of the problem;  there are lots of people using OpenLDAP, but none of
>the implementation money is getting to the developers (at least not a
>significant portion anyway) so while the back end is pretty slick, they
>do no have adequate resources to develop suitable front end management
>tools or slick installers.  It's entirely a volunteer effort.

Most of the OSS world is volunteer. I agree this disconnect is there, but
how do we circumvent it? I know there are a lot of projects on sourceforge,
freshmeat, and /., but for those of us that are not programmers, what can we
do to help?

>Further, many consulting clients require an agreement to be signed such
>that none of the work done at the client site can be shared with the
>outside world.  Yes, consultants make more money spinning the clock up
>to reinvent the wheel over & over but if clients would be more
>realistic in their intellectual property secrecy requirements, it would
>be possible for field consultants to collaborate more (if they were so
>inclined) to the end of having slick deployment & management tools.

Why not make it part of the agreement that the "generic" code/scripts used
will be property of the author (consultant), but the use and proprietary
information is property of the client and cannot leave there facility as you
have stated?

>Even otherwise Linux-friendly shops can put legal burdens on
>consultants to hand over ownership of all scripts & programs to $CLIENT
>such that they never see the light of day in the outside world.  This
>can be a real discouragement to consultants who would otherwise be
>inclined to make tools available.

I'm not a consultant by any means, but from what I've heard from the guys
I've spoken to, their clients seem eager to have OSS solutions and it would
appear to me they would like to help in providing the solution. Dunno, just
trying to think outside the box I'm not in (consulting).