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Re: Proposal for new repo - Clouder

by
SAS Clouder, Yannick Buron
- 16/10/2016 16:27:28
Hello,

Of course keeping or not the brand name is a difficult question, and I can tell you that when writing the previous mail I was feeling very stupid because things were already moving in the direction for keeping the Clouder name. I just don't like avoiding important topics like that when I feel people missed an important point.

To me, a company linked to a non-profit structure is a model which work in open-source world. I always wanted to move the Clouder development inside an association or a foundation which follow the same rule than OCA., for the reasons you explained, to give security to contributors. At first I though I'd need to create it later, but doing it in the OCA directly would serve the same purpose and make sense.
I am confident that it shouldn't be a problem, there must be a easy way for me to make sure the OCA never ever have any problem, and this may serve as a precedent so projects which are today developed internally because of the same concerns I had can be moved in the OCA. We are a business community, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one which had theses thoughts.

My main concern, and I can say the only real one, is purely marketing. When people will click on the "Fork me on github" on my website, and they are redirecting to a repo which does not have the Clouder name, this will be confusing. And other stuff like that which will make things unnecessary difficult to sell the project. This is really important, I need to make sure I have the room to have an efficient communication otherwise it will be as bad for the project as not having a proper frame for contributions.

I too think that the OCA is greatly designed to avoid falling into bad hands, I want to say let's try and see what happen. Anyway, if by any chance the OCA fall under bad hands I should not have too much problem in such case to move the community, and if my company fall under bad hands (which is unlikely to happen, this is a full bootstrap strategy there is no investor and shouldn't be any, the OCA will also protect me here in some extend) then yes you can consider the agreement was fouled and rename the repo without feeling bad, nothing will prevent you to do so.

Of course I am not impartial here, but I hope you can understand my point. It's important to have good footings and the topic was unavoidable, but anyway once it's decided let's all focus on making something really great.

(PS : Sorry for losing the subject of the mail in my previous post, I had to go through the Odoo interface to answer and it lost it.)

Yannick Buron
Founder
+33 (0) 6 70 74 52 26 | yannick@goclouder.net
My blog : www.disruptingworld.me/

Clouder
Building the tools we need
98 Avenue du general pierre billotte BatD
94000 Creteil
www.goclouder.net | www.wikicompare.info

Le 16/10/2016 12:08, Daniel Reis a écrit :
<blockquote cite="mid:0e31a5d1-7f27-9638-faeb-ed439e4f9fec@sapo.pt" type="cite">
Hi Yannick,

You email discusses several topics that need to be correctly addressed.

TL;DR: maybe the OCA repo should rather be named something like 
"OCA/infrastructure-cloud" or ""OCA/infrastructure-docker".


> I already suggested this move in the OCA on July, and it's so good to 
> see things moving now. Of course I am also volunteer for PSC.
Thank you for that, of course you will have a central position in the 
project.

> Still there some things which need to be said. I don't want to take 
> anyone by surprise so please note that Clouder is the name of my 
> company and is a registered trademark. This should not cause any 
> worries, I don't mind making a public and definitive statement saying 
> that everyone especially the OCA can use the name, and in fact I even 
> ask that to respect the work which has been done you keep the name 
> Clouder for the repo this would be very important for me.
> Then, note that we will continue to act as the editor of Clouder, and 
> base our communication around that. This is just our business strategy.
>
We're all in goodwill, but this can be an issue that is best solved 
right at the start.
The "Clouder" brand is an intellectual property of your Company, and is 
not covered by the CLA you sign with the OCA. If you sell your company, 
the OCA can be requested to remove any reference to the "Clouder" brand.
So I think it is wise to separate the technical project name from the 
brand name.
But it's fair to make a clear mention to the Cloder brand on the repo 
README.
That's something easy to correct if the worse happens.

Having said that, maybe the OCA repo should rather be named something 
like "OCA/infrastructure-cloud" or ""OCA/infrastructure-docker" .


> Annnnd... That's all. I have some other concerns, like the fact that 
> if by any chance the OCA fall under evil, Oracle-like, hands Clouder 
> will be also in trouble as OCA will through the CLA have more power 
> than we have (This is a one-go ticket for us, there is no way back 
> since we'll not have a copyright copy of contributors like the OCA). 
> Or we can later have some disagreements regarding the leadership of 
> the project.
>
The OCA delegates election system was designed to avoid being taken over 
by hostile interests.
And relicensing by the OCA would only be allowed for OSI-approved licenses.
There is also the opposite scenario - for Clouder being taken over by 
some bigger player.
One of the benefits proposed the OCA to it's users is to protect them 
this kind of "upstream" changes.
In the end, you can see it also as a shield protecting your work - if 
your company gets acquired or closed down, you will still be able to use 
and continue developing your Clouder work under the protection of the OCA.

> But screw this. Call me a madman but giving Clouder, the two years of 
> hard work that it represent and all the future we have in mind, to the 
> OCA is a bet I am willing to take. I have faith in the OCA and the 
> open-source community, as everybody here, that faith and putting the 
> project under an umbrella trusted by everyone is far more important 
> that the fears I may have.
>
Thank you a million for that :-)

--dr

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