Technology Council Guidelines

DRAFT FOR DISCUSSION BY TC - DO NOT QUOTE (YET)

This page provides reference to guide Technology Council decisions.

Basic principles

OW2 is a place for projects to meet and cooperate.
The main criteria for evaluating a project is the benefit it brings to the OW2 code base and, through the code base, to the market.
We are also to the momentum of the Consortium itself and of its business ecosystem.
We deal with project, not companies. We look and evaluate projects, not the companies behind the projects.
TC decisions are by consensus: the CTO might want (by vote if consensus is out of reach or too difficult to obtain) ...

Guidelines for accepting new projects in incubation

OW2 members Project submitters do not have to be OW2 members. However, for the TC decision to accept a project to become effective, non members must register as OW2 members.

Sponsors New projects must be sponsored. A sponsor is an individual. This individual must be both a project manager and a member of the TC.

Leverage Submitted projects must leverage the OW2 code base. A submitted project must describe how it intends to works with / integrates / assembles with existing projects for their common benefits. TC must be able to understand what is the project contribution to the code base and how it re-uses existing code. Question to ask submitters: "Code base leverage: how does the submitted project integrate with existing projects, how does it reuse existing components, how does it complement existing projects?"

Competition We agree that refusing competition is dangerous. It is a way to freeze the code base, to refuse progress when it can make us uncomfortable and to loose our openness.

OW2 is OK to accept soft competition between differentiated projects, but wants to avoid head-to-head rivalry between projects.
OW2 tries to prevent redundancy that do not bring value to the OW2 organization.

Guidelines for upgrading a project to mature

Decision process Upgrading a project to mature is a decision of the TC. The proposal to upgrade the project must be submitted to the TC by the sponsor. Decision by consensus or by vote if no consensus. ???????Which majority required??????

Competition We can/should accept some level of competition but we should also avoid damaging rivalry between projects. We must refuse to upgrade to mature a project that position itself as a rival to an existing OW2 project. While there may be some overlap, all mature projects must be clearly differentiated.

Competition and differentiation A mature project must be able to make its differentiation clear. Such differentiation can be a question of:\ a) technology, b) range positioning (lightweight solution vs heavy-duty, stand-alone vs distributed, etc.),\ c) packaging (component, user-ready solution, OSGi, etc.)\ d) open source license

Leverage Project must be able to show how it has been working with other projects from the OW2 code base. How it integrates and assembles with existing projects projects for their common benefits.