Sun and Apache
A belated blog post on a subject that’s now a week old …
It seems I’m not the only ASF member to have just joined Sun. Ted Leung has just joined – albeit in a different area of $bigco (and with different main interests at ASF).
We join a select band of folks with both the two hats, including Dave Johnson, Craig Russell, and Craig McClanahan. There may be others, but if so they’re not talking about it.
With the quota rising from three to five, it seems fair to say Sun is no longer underrepresented at Apache for a company of its size, position and importance. OTOH, I believe we still fall short of some other $bigcos such as IBM and Google, and indeed far smaller companies like Joost. But that’s just an impression: I haven’t collected the data to back it up.
As for what I’ll be doing over the coming weeks and months … well, we’ve identified areas of interest that should be of benefit to everyone (Sun, Apache, the wider community, and myself). Watch this space!
Posted on March 8, 2008, in apache, sun. Bookmark the permalink. 4 Comments.
niq's soapbox 
i am another one, although i have not been active in the asf for a while, and came to sun via the mysql acquisition.
But Nick… does it matter who works where? ASF Members and committers travel across multiple companies (witness Jim going from MySQL to Sun). This is why the ASF stresses individuals rather than what company they happen to work for.
Certainly, you could take a look at what a company’s employees do on their *corporate* time rather than their individual/personal time. That is a much harder measure, and it is certainly independent of their Member status.
Did I say it matters who works where?
You and I both know there’s an issue of perception, when ASF gets called SomeBigCo’s poodle. It never sticks, not least because it’s not true. There was also been some concern about the risk of too many board members coming from a single stable, and I do tend to the view that a healthy board should be diverse.
This post wasn’t about who works where among ASF folks. Rather I’m thinking about my new employer’s relationship with ASF, knowing that relations have been strained, hoping to improve them, and actively seeking to ensure good relations at least within my neighbourhood.
Hi Jim! Sorry I missed you from the list.
I expect Sun must’ve picked up quite a few interesting folks besides your good self with the MySQL acquisition. Do we class you as a new recruit (new to Sun), or an old hand (didn’t change job)? Rhetorical question – doesn’t call for a reply 🙂