It's all a bit wrong
1. Totally the wrong people/groups invited. Where were the representatives of the mass of smaller/solo developers? Only the billion-dollar businesses get a say; the rest of us are just their suppliers.
2. Their aim is to 'professionalise' open source developers. For the majority it can't be done (I speak as one). You'd need to somehow impose procedures, documentations, testing regimes, timely patches, etc. And once you do that I walk away; I am writing code because I want to, and if gatekeepers arise and do any of that then my code goes private again as this is definitively not a job, but a passion.
3. The people who really matter in this, the independent open source people, need to start withholding the product of their labour from the corporations who could afford to pay. It's a basic matter of who sets the terms, them or us? Don't allow them to decide how and how much; they are our customers and it is us, the suppliers, who should set the rules.
4. They want the code to leech off whilst generating their billions? Then buy a license for it.
5. The big businesses named are mostly *not* open source companies. They only open source what doesn't matter to them, and keep their Crown Jewels to themselves. Where is the open source code for Google Search? For Windows, Azure, or Xbox? For Oracle? These are cynical companies that offer a pittance to join a club then seek to set the rules so the members work for them instead.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
