First, my post was a general reaction to a wide number of conversations with members of several open source communities during the past six months and was not, in any way, focused on the Jaspersoft community. In fact, I have previously written about the unparalleled size of the Jaspersoft community (in BI) and its relatively high vibrancy, which creates an enormous amount of pride for our company and community.

Second, this post was intended to draw out the important responsibility that each community member should hopefully feel for gaining the enormous benefits from using modern, open source software. And, in fact, I’ll now emphasize that this is a two-way responsibility. A COSS (commercial open source software) vendor should feel a deep sense of responsibility to provide an increasing array of simple ways for community members to contribute. At Jaspersoft, we take this very seriously, which we know has a meaningful effect on our community vibrancy. For example, through our JasperForge community web site, we offer:

- Feature voting to help calibrate priorities among the community;
- Regular community surveys to uncover longer-term needs;
- JasperBabylon, a project area specifically designed to make localizing our software easier and more collaborative.

And, we’ve recently instituted a Community Advisory Board, which provides us with more in-depth feedback on a number of strategic topics. These are all outputs of our sense of responsibility to help build a growing, vibrant community.

Third, I would never intentionally minimize the contribution that comes from simply downloading and using open source software. It is indeed one of the important ways someone can contribute. But, I think (even hope) open source communities can challenge themselves to do better than that. Greater participation by a larger percentage of community members (in any form) breeds better software, and better software is in the self-interest of each and every community member. Some of the commenters here may not understand or agree with this, but I disagree with their notion that increasing ones’ level of participation in an OS community may not be in the self-interest of the individual. Ultimately, better software is what makes the open source model more powerful than aged, proprietary methods.

Lastly, my blog post, like any, leaves room for interpretation. For anyone who interpreted my use of the word “sin” to connote actual evil, please reconsider. My tone in this post was intended to be inspiring and encouraging and focused on responsibility, not about guilt or obligation (and never desperation). My goal is to challenge every open source community member to explore new ways to get involved and this remains my hope.

Thanks,

Brian

It is a good news for Java Developer community.