Re: Josh Berkus's platform on political activity, was: money handling

Anthony,

> I'm more suggesting that I think it's possible to setup the relationship
> between SPI and the projects it supports in such a way that they can
> handle those sorts of issues without needing approval from every member
> project; mostly by making SPI and its member organisations roughly as
> independent from each other as, eg, IBM and PostgreSQL are when it comes
> to promoting DB2 perhaps.

Well, that's actually a counter-example. IBM does *not* officially support
PostgreSQL, precisely because they have DB2. They certainly *use*
PostgreSQL.

> Which is to say that SPI could take the view that it undertakes multiple
> activities in the public interest, some of which is supporting
> organisations like Debian and PostgreSQL, while others include
> participating in patent reform, and not trying to claim a particularly
> strong relationship between the two activities.

Right. Those activities would have to be handled carefully in order for them
not to "spill over" onto each other. That's what I'm watching out for.

> BTW, Software Freedom Day is Sept 16th this year, with the signup
> deadline being tomorrow (Wednesday); is that something any of the SPI
> board/candidates think SPI should be involved in in some way?

What does one do for Software Freedom Day?

--
Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL Project
Core Team Member
(any opinions expressed are my own)