Ask Ethan

[Romuald FRONTEAU]

Hi Ethan, 

I don't want to response in mailing-list. 

Thanks a lot Ethan for this idea and your response. We wanted a roadmap and your opinion in the future. We didn't want to insult Nagios Core Team or other, we just want to work, communicate with you to answer questions from the community and not answer them "Wait and See". 

I think that I use your Ask Ethan to give you my opinion and ideas to develop the communication between Community and You. 

Regards 



Fronteau Romuald 
Équipe Communauté Nagios Francophone 
rfronteau at nagios-fr.org 
http://www.nagios-fr.org 



----- Mail Original ----- 
De: "Ethan Galstad" <egalstad at nagios.org> 
À: "Nagios Developers List" <nagios-devel at lists.sourceforge.net> 
Envoyé: Mardi 2 Mars 2010 05:55:29 
Objet: [Nagios-devel] Ask Ethan 


The recent messages on this list indicate a need for better 
communication between parties. It may be exciting to start a flame war 
or launch personal attacks based on unfounded assumptions, but its not 
effective or beneficial. 

If you have questions for me about what I think regarding the future of 
the Nagios Project, commercialization of Nagios, Nagios XI, trademarks, 
community stuff, etc. - just ask. In order to expedite and coordinate 
responses to share with the community, I've created a new "Ask Ethan" 
form online where you can submit questions to me about whatever you'd 
like. I'll answer these questions in the monthly Nagios News that goes 
out. As long as there continues to be new questions, I'll do my best to 
make "Ask Ethan" a permanent monthly section in the newsletter. Submit 
a question at: 

http://www.nagios.com/askethan 

Here are some quick responses to questions I've seen asked. If you want 
more detail on any of these, submit an "Ask Ethan" question at the link 
above and I'll go into more depth in the newsletter... 

1. Nagios Core and other OSS components of the Nagios Project are 
important to both myself and Nagios Enterprises. Nagios XI (like many 
other commercial solutions) is based on those components and we 
definitely want those projects to flourish in the future. *I* may not 
be the person actually coding or integrating patches (I've done that for 
over a decade now), but I'm dedicated to finding ways to ensure the 
project continues for at least the next decade. And just so there's no 
confusion on the subject, Nagios Core will always be free as in speech 
and beer. 

2. Our commercial Nagios XI solution is not 100% Open Source, and it 
probably won't ever be in its entirety. There are some really great 
components that we license from other parties and we plan to include 
other licensed components in the future. Why? They provide a better 
solution to our customers than OSS alternatives (if they even exist). 
Most all other commercial Nagios solutions out there go the same route. 

3. While its relatively new for Nagios Enterprises, commercialization of 
Nagios is going to expand in the future, so we can continue to provide 
more great solutions for the people that need them. Commercialization 
also makes it easier to provide resources to ensure the existing free 
OSS projects prosper, and that new projects can be funded. If you 
object to the commercialization of Nagios, consider this: the only 
reason I wrote Nagios and released it as an OSS project in the first 
place is because I intended to use it for commercial purposes. 

4. We have, are, and will continue to regulate the use of the Nagios 
mark and prevent its misuse to ensure the integrity of the Nagios name 
and the future of the Nagios Project - just as I was personally doing 
long before the conception of Nagios Enterprises. Our trademark policy 
is almost an exact clone of the Ubuntu trademark policy. Its a great 
policy that fits the needs of both community advocacy and the commercial 
legal requirements for brand protection, anti-dilution, and consumer 
confusion. Open Source licenses like the GPL only address copyright - 
not trademark. Trademarks are a separate type of intellectual property 
that is out of scope with what copyright covers. 

5. I've dedicated the past 11 years to the Nagios project and have done 
my best to keep the project going and keep it within the scope of what a 
monitoring engine should be. You can jump to all the conclusions you'd 
like, but unless you've dedicated several consecutive years to building, 
maintaining, and supporting a project like Nagios, you simply have no 
idea what it takes to take care of everything that happens along the 
way. The choices that I make are what I consider to be in the best 
interest of the project in the long run. You don't have to agree with 
me. I have no intention of trying to make each and every single Nagios 
user out there happy. It isn't possible. 

6. There is nothing broken or wrong with Nagios Core the way it is. Its 
a monitoring *engine*. It works well for hundreds of thousands of users 
today. Many people still run Nagios 2.x, 1.x, or even NetSaint - 
because its works just the way it is. An integrated DB-backend, web 
based configuration engine, and a whole lot of other stuff are out of 
scope for Nagios Core - that's what addons are for. Even the Nagios 
Plugins are out of scope for Nagios Core - that's why they're a separate 
project. If you want something additional in Nagios, check out all the 
addons that are available on Nagios Exchange. Start your own addon 
project if a suitable one doesn't exist, or contribute to an existing 
project if you see a need for improvement. If you see a problem in 
Nagios Core, step up and make a patch. Don't complain if someone else 
doesn't produce something that you want. 

Lastly, I would urge you to wait a few hours and consider things 
carefully before you decide to fire off a flaming email insulting or 
making accusations towards myself, other core contributors, or community 
members. Its not only unprofessional and counterproductive, it is also 
somewhat self-defeating in that it is akin to biting the hand that feeds 
you. If you insult Nagios OSS developers, how do you expect new 
contributors to want to join the various Nagios projects and donate 
their free time to bring you great software? It doesn't make sense. I 
could have a hell of a time asking new people to join the teams if they 
expect to be treated poorly by people they're delivering free stuff to. 

Remember that people that contribute to OSS projects like Nagios 
generally do so in their free time, and of their own accord. You can't 
expect everyone to be available to you all the time, and at any time you 
wish. I don't owe you anything when it comes to the time I can commit 
to various projects and neither do the other people that contribute 
their time to Nagios projects. Period. 

- Ethan 


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