Posted by riaan burger on April 8, 2013 at 11:23am
Be owned and administered by a comercial entity as it is now.
43% (12 votes)
Be owned by the community / Dries and administered by the community in stead.
54% (15 votes)
Something else... add your opinion in the comments.
4% (1 vote)
Total votes: 28
Comments
Essential Start
I think we'll get more commercial votes in a closed poll like this as it is easier to hold that opinion in private than argue for it in public as we did in that long topic, but it may still be worth adding one as this is a fundamental part of the changes needed to free the community for more individuals and companies to take part in.
I feel that, in line with other Drupal associations and the project as a whole, we're more Joomla! than Mambo (and more Drupal than Joomla! of course, but if you know the Mambo/Joomla! history, you'd get the reference), more LibreOffice than OpenOffice or Microsoft Office, more Debian than Ubuntu or Mac OS etc. in the Drupal project...
...and because of that, should we poll with any significant part of the community leaning to a free domain set, we should solicit that change before continuing with major other parts of the community building.
Noticed
Noticable how the vote was initially, all for the second option, then in one day this morning 10 votes was cast for the Drupal domains remaining with a commercial entity.
Yet, in the discussions and here no open case was made for keeping it commercially owned and the predominant opinion voiced in discussion was for freeing the domains.
Staff, friends, accounts?
We still have a significant-enough portion of the community wanting our domains to be owned and administered in line with other Drupal ccTLDs, so of course, things will proceed.
Please keep in mind that this poll, maybe less than the open discussion we had, but still, will be referenced in future discussions and the poll closes next weekend, so make sure to vote and make sure you get everyone that may have a stake in the Drupal community to vote their conscious.
Not Fraudulent Votes
I was a little suspicious of the 10 votes to keep the domains under commercial ownership this morning, even worried that the votes were simply edited in.
But I went through the members list of this group that sorts members according to when they were last logged in and with most of the latest members that logged in currently employed by eConsultant or previously employed by them, it makes sense that this was a simple staff group vote that peaked so many votes in favor of them retaining ownership of the domain. I suppose we can expect more.
Riaan - firstly you setup the
Riaan - firstly you setup the vote in a way that is obviously aimed at strengthening your argument. Then when there are valid votes that go against your position, you argue in the comments, even going as far as to track the source of the votes and dispute their validity.
It's great that you're enthusiastic about improving the Drupal community. I would suggest that you try to channel that energy positively and perhaps work with the existing community instead of trying to sow discord.
As for my opinion on the website. I vote that the ownership of the domain stays with the company that registered it. The community can still work on and improve the site where it is hosted now. If the aims of the community is being obstructed by the current owners of the domain, then the necessary steps can be discussed. From what I've seen this hasn't been the case.
Perspective
Hello Gomez in the South,
Thanks for mailing me and for voting.
I did try to alleviate my bias for change in line with other national Drupal ccTLDs a bit by putting the incumbent option first. My enthusiasm is for freeing the domains, but that is only a fundamental part of participation in the community (which I also do) and Drupal and Open Source in general. I try to devote an hour a day to this, and at least as much time in helping bring an association to life. Another part of my participation is to try to participate actively in other community members' community projects. So that pretty much quickly eats up the hour. It's just that perhaps this domain issue is highlighted right now that you notice it more.
The program for freeing the domains is still in early stages, with as much as six months of work still ahead, though I hope to still and always still solve the issue amicably.
Please note that I put the votes into perspective. With so many of the votes having a commercial interest, making their source public is in everyone's best interest. I specifically titles that last comment of mine: "Not Fraudulent Votes". I've not yet seen a good argument for the domains to remain in commercial ownership as opposed to Dries/community ownership and community administration.
Kind regards,
Riaan
I dont understand .. you cant
I dont understand .. you cant vote this guy out of his domains. To be quite honest its not a massively terrible site. Its not heavy promoting his company, it has community based functionality. Please bro , call this a day and just setup a community based site that you want on another url. The url means shit. Its what you do on it that counts. I dont see how you can figure this to be such a huge problem. You getting way to political for open source technology.
Open Source Rights
The rights of open source software should be supported. The trade mark of Drupal should be community representative and inclusive.
I see no case for keeping these domains commercially owned.
Yes, we cannot vote the commercial entity that owns them into handing them over to the community. But we can apply social pressure to do so.
The poll is just a step in that direction that is more notable right now. The topic was the one that preceded it and less highlighted items are afoot too. Not all are political, most are in fact, not.
The general public would expect to find the South African Drupal community represented on these domains.
We need to represented the community better and support it better. This is an advancement of those ideas and only part of them. We need a level playing field for participation in the community (and those sites) by other companies and individuals.