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Comment on Introducing //TODO for companies that are committed to open source

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After reading this announcement, I have no clue what this is or why my company might want to join it.

Agreed. "What it looks like to release open source projects, how to shift ownership of projects from companies to the community, and how to make sure that open source projects remaining healthy and active" has been discussed for almost 20 years. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that they have something to contribute here, but why not hold the announcement until they actually say what they're going to say?

For open source in general, we absolutely agree... but company-run projects aren't always as successful - and yet we feel they can be a valuable part of the overall open source landscape.

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Why not sign up[1] then wait and see? I didn't see any indication that they are trying to form some kind of exclusive club.

1. http://todogroup.org/#join

No, very much inclusive. We'll be getting back to all the companies interested in the very short term.

If my company doesn't have anything open sourced but I would like to see how others do it to help pitch the idea, would I be welcome to join as an individual? Or should I just wait for the group's output?

Ah. Thank you for pointing that out. I completely missed it. I will delete my comment.

Would love to see someone from Github answer this question. Very curious what //TODO is about, what it actually does, etc.

I added some comments about the impetus for launching TODO, and why we approached it by not being prescriptive out of the gate. The list of possible projects is long, and our first order of business is prioritizing them.

We'll be contacting the interested companies (over 200 now) about an in-person workshop and the other discussion platforms we're using.

Thanks!

I agree with boucher. I have read every page on http://todogroup.org/ (don't worry, there were only a handful). There is nothing concrete about "talk openly, develop openly" other than the list of inaugural companies ("Box, Dropbox, Facebook, GitHub, Google, Khan Academy, Square, Stripe, Twitter, and Walmart Labs" from the blog post, though only some of those are listed on the official website).

I suppose that this is neutral at worst. I had the fleeting, whimsical thought that Apple and Samsung ought to both join.

I shared a few more (personal) thoughts about what the group can achieve above in a neighbouring comment.

Came here to say this. Can't see any kind of mission statement other than there is a membership list and they committed to open source discussion.

I feel similarly. I have a vague idea for what the group is about, but not really any idea as to what the group will do or what participating in the group would mean. More information's due.

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