I blogged some time ago about my belief that the OMG had to make some changes in order to remain relevant in today's industry. It seems that some of Bjorn's recent thoughts have led some people to express similar beliefs about Eclipse. I delivered a presentation at EclipseCon last year, comparing and contrasting various aspects of these two organizations; I'd like to take moment here to comment on their models of participation.
At Eclipse, participation in projects is open to individuals (as committer members) and, indeed, membership is not even required to participate as a contributor. Privileges (e.g. the ability to write to the source code repository and vote as part of the Eclipse Development Process) are associated with the individual rather than the organization - if an organization discontinues its membership or an employee leaves his/her member employer, the individual retains those privileges. This is good for the individual but not so good for the organization - as Jochen reminded participants of the Eclipse Open Source Executive Strategy Summit, the risks of losing knowledge, leadership, and write access to code when a participating employee (committer) leaves his/her employer should not be underestimated.
At the OMG, on the other hand, participation in task forces, submission teams, and working groups is generally restricted to representatives of member organizations. Privileges (e.g. the ability to evaluate draft specifications and vote as part of the OMG Technology Adoption Process) are associated with the organization rather than the individual - if an organization discontinues its membership or an employee leaves his/her member employer, the individual loses those privileges. This is good for the organization but not so good for the individual - after all, it's the efforts of individuals that make open specifications a reality, and it seems unfortunate to exclude what could be valuable contributions from individuals just because they don't work for a member company.
I'm not sure whether one model is better than the other, but I'd like to think that maybe a different participation model might better serve the needs of both member organizations and individuals. Do you have any thoughts or suggestions?
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4 comments:
Frankly, I'd rather have you participate in Eclipse than OMG ;).
I guess as the economy changes, companies are going to take a good look at how participation in communities affect the bottom line. Not to criticize, but no matter how I write this it sounds like it, so maybe it is a criticism, but OMG needs to make more of a difference in the industry if it's to keep it's membership.
And I guess that's my answer. Provide value and you'll have both individuals and organizations interested in contributing. It's too easy for organization only communities to get tied up in politics and lose sight of the value.
And to expand on that. Eclipse can be both if it allowed member companies a free pass on committer elections. But then, I haven't seen a committer election fail for developers from a member company.
I've never seen a committer election fail to vote in the newcomer, and only once seen someone denied (temporarily) while they got more experience before being resubmitted and ultimately elected.
Seems that the bigger block is convincing an existing committer to start the process.
In that case (in my experience) it's really about the squeaky wheel...
Open membership up to both Individuals and Organizations. This way you have the best of both worlds. Might get some consultants and independents that join, that can still contribute their knowledge.
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