[Ocaml-biz] The tactical future of OCaml in 1 year's time

[Brandon J. Van Every]

Tony Edgin wrote:
> Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> >
> > Your confusion is that you view the law in theory, not in
> > practice.  In
> > practice, we could try to create a faits accompli, get the OCaml
> > community to like it, then get INRIA to like it.  In practice, INRIA
> > might not be legally sharp or attentive enough to defend their
> > trademark.  If they don't defend it, it's fair game to poach it.
>
> What if they do defend it?

Clearly, we'll have to bow before their superior legal muscle.  We'll
take a stab at doing things 'their way' at that time.  Here's how I see
the evolution of strategy:

1) first we try our way, not bug them about it, and see if they just go
along with it.
2) if they insist, we try to do things on their terms via amicable
cooperation.
3) if they can't be worked with, we go our own way.

We have to be fully prepared for (3).  The Python business community was
not so prepared.  They fell apart, they weren't willing to sustain their
own effort and go their own way.  The Python community is perfectly
capable of spinning its wheels indefinitely on such issues.  It takes
determination and resolve to go the whole way.  You want allies; if
various parties refuse to be allies, you must be willing to forge ahead
anyways.

> Cooperation is what's
> needed.   I'm not saying consensus.  Just something like we
> talk to Xavier or
> one of the other Ocaml creators and find out their identity
> for Ocaml, then
> develop material we think is not in conflict with this
> identity, and finally
> get them to not disapprove it.  If they do, we iterate until
> they don't.  No consensus and no conflict.

INRIA is not going to do anything for us at this time, is not interested
in logo or other marketing discussions, and thus we should not bother
them at this time.  All we will do is annoy them, think badly of us, and
wish to oppose whatever 'bad' thing we're doing.

The time to talk to INRIA is after we've presented logo designs to the
OCaml community at large and have initial feedback.  At that point we're
talking tangibles, not theories.  If INRIA doesn't like something,
they'll be dealing with the whole community, not just us.  We should
plan to offer *3* logos, so that the community and INRIA can go through
their own consensus building process.  If we offer 3 targets to shoot
down, 1 may survive.  If none survive, at least we have lotsa
information on what's not working,  We'll certainly be praised for our
effort if not our results.  Thus we can form the OCaml community and
INRIA into partners instead of people who just say 'no'.

> Let's table this logo/mascot decision.  INRIA won't take us
> seriously until we show more than just a lot of ASCII hot air.

I agree about tabling a mascot.

I don't agree about tabling a logo.  It is not as important as defining
and executing a showcase OCaml project, but it is needed.  We need a
channel for different kinds of volunteer labor.  We need artists and web
designers, people who are oriented towards *marketing*, not just tech.
Since I think we're mostly techs here right now, it makes sense to
proceed with what we know best, i.e. tools and showcase projects.  But
we need to be 'slowly cooking' on the eye candy side of things as well,
we have to sustain an effort.

Getting a logo together is only one step.  Then there is website design.
The Python crowd argued about *that* for months and months and months,
never got anywhere.  Here's one version of what might have been:
http://www.pollenation.net/assets/public/python-main-oct05.png
Here's what they've still got, 1 year later:
http://www.python.org
Here's their competition:
http://www.java.com/

Can you smell the inertia?  This is what you get when open source guys
can't cooperate, can't commit to decisions, plans, and actions.  Python
would be going gangbusters if certain parties would simply *allow* it to
happen.  Instead, everybody yabbers about their perfect version of how a
website ideally should be and it just logjams.  1 graphic designer given
a mandate could have fixed 60% of the problems in a fairly short period
of time.  Then it could have been refined, fixing 80% of the problems.
Instead it turned into "I don't want this, I don't want that, I think we
should do this, I think we should do that...."  This is the unimpressive
side of open source, when people just flake, when cats refuse to be
herded.

I think we're doing just fine here on ocaml-biz so far.  Nothing's wrong
with debate.  We had plenty of debates when designing logos, we still
got things done.


Cheers,                     www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every           Seattle, WA

When no one else sells courage, supply and demand take hold.