Re: CloudFlare and LuaJIT

From: Mike Pall <mikelj-1508@xxxxxxx>
To: luajit@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2015 20:30:31 +0200

John Graham-Cumming wrote:

When he contacted us asking if we would assist we were shocked
to learn that he had decided to move on, and immediately agreed
to assist. We are huge users of LuaJIT and fans of the project
and Mike and want it to continue in a healthy fashion for years
to come.

John, thank you for the kind words!

I'm sorry for the short advance notice I could offer -- but you
know how the Internet works. Given past communication, it was an
easy decision for me to approach CloudFlare with my plea for help.

Let me explain a bit:

I've talked about open source with many corporations in the past,
from very small to very big. Not just for sponsorships, but also
when doing consulting; even before LuaJIT materialized.

The main differentiator was always their stance on open source.
Whether they regard it as a thrift shop with sucky self-service or
as a treasure chest that keeps on giving, when well-nourished.

It was often arduous to deal with the former kind. OTOH it was
comparatively easy to deal with engineers, managers and corporate
lawyers that understand or even appreciate open source. This is a
cultural difference -- it's like night and day.

Negotiating open source sponsorship contracts can be tedious,
believe me. At least, if you want to preserve your freedom as a
developer and the freedom of your software. If I had one piece of
advice: never compromise on core issues of intellectual property,
don't be afraid to disagree with lawyers, know what leverage you
have. And most important: trust your gut instinct and cut your
losses, if they just don't 'get' it.

I generally do research about any business partner I deal with;
and I expect them to do the same. Contracts are about trust. If
you don't trust someone, then don't deal with them, no matter what
a contract says. And whether you agree that open source is a
meritocracy is or not, but your partners will look at your code
and judge it (and you) based on its merits. That's why you, as an
open source contributor, should judge your partners on how _they_
deal with code from others.

That said, it was a real pleasure to work with CloudFlare. They
had a flawless track record wrt. their handling of open source.
They try to push everything upstram that might even be remotely
useful to someone else, they open anything that's only tangential
to their core business, they fund external and in-house open
source developers, they talk openly about their use of open source,
they promote the use of open source. What more can you ask for?

I always had constructive discussions with their egineers about
the particular technical issues they'd like to have solved and how
to maximize the benefit; not just for them, but for everyone.
Getting the paperwork done was really easy -- thanks Dane and
Matthew! And if my life hadn't taken some peculiar turns (which
has nothing to do with them), we'd probably have worked together
on quite a few more sponsorships by now.

I hope everyone can understand now, why I trusted CloudFlare to
fulfill this role.

And, yes, there are a lot more companies that understand open
source, nowadays. The LuaJIT sponsorship page lists some of them,
plus the ones that opted to stay anonymous (mostly for fear of
their competition knowing what secret weapon they use -- that's as
much as I can reveal). I'm also indebted to Evan Wies who
encouraged me to set up the first sponsorship page, provided
initial funding and happily watched his plan unfold. :-)

As an open source developer, don't be afraid to ask for sponsorships,
provided your track record is good. You'd be surprised about how
many open doors you'll find, even in big corporations. OTOH, if you
don't have any ideals and you're only in for the money: forget it,
you will not succeed. There are easier ways to earn money than
working on open source (or computer language toolchains BTW).

Quite a few organizations have approached me in the last year
about sponsorship opportunities. I'll promise to direct them to
the new project, once the transition is complete and the new team
has formed.

--Mike

References:
- CloudFlare and LuaJIT
  - From: John Graham-Cumming

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