[Nagios-devel] The nagios community wants to keep its open soul

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It's an alarm call that is raised : after a long period where people =20
began to think nagios is a dead foss project, we nearly reach a point =20
of no return : the author try to gag on the community because it's to =20
free!!

Let's get back to the facts : Nagios is still the reference in the =20
open source monitoring tools, and some serious challengers like Zabbix =20
or Zenoss try to reach its place. In the open source world, and =20
especially the monitoring one, the real strength is not in code lines, =20
but in the community around the project. You know the Nagios one has =20
been a great one during years. Meanwhile, since two years, the lack of =20
presence and answer from Ethan to proposals from the community =20
legitimately irritate the community. As much as a fork, named Icinga, =20
arisen a year ago.

Where the story became complex is when we look at the economic sphere =20
around Nagios. Like a lot of foss that grow a lot, and after have =20
given more than 8 years of it's time to Nagios, he legitimately create =20
a support enterprise behind it, "Nagios Enterprise". The Icinga fork =20
came from community members that are also employees of another society =20
that supports Nagios : Netways. If the GPLv2 license of Nagios was =20
respected, it seems more like a business fork than a foss one for the =20
nagios author. That had irritate Nagios author and the major part of =20
the community have stay in the Nagios project.

Unfortunately, this story have a side effect : we are thinking Ethan =20
began to turn against the community, and this open spirit that allow =20
this fork, by ignore even more the community and refuse to answer to =20
code enhancement proposals.
Last but not least affront : he ask the DNS entry of the French nagios =20
community site (http://www.nagios-fr.org) to be give to him so he can =20
raised a new community, more corporate : in this site we can see some =20
posts about the felon (but open source and nagios relative) Icinga =20
project! This fork seem to have finally more cut Ethan author and the =20
community than the community into two parts.

That's the last straw for a community who want to be as free as foss =20
it supports. In Open Source, we have "free as in beer" but also "free =20
as in speech". I, as the leader of the French community, and with the =20
support of community members, answer him that it will be be tolerated =20
to be dictate laws about what the community can speak about. To do not =20
risk an hypothetical sue from Nagios Enterprise (for trademark =20
protection), we have decided to migrate the site to monitoring-fr.org =20
and to gave the nagios-fr.org site to Nagios enterprise when the =20
migration will be finished.

With this open letter entitle "The nagios community wants to keep its =20
open soul", the community ask where the project is going and if it =20
will still be open and ethically respectful of the open source spirit. =20
Some question raised about the real open aspect of the Nagios future =20
by freezing the current open source part and put it into a close =20
solution (Nagios XI, close application based on Nagios, soon available =20
from Nagios Enterprise) that seem to be the only part that will evolve =20
in the future. The community also ask how it's seen in the Nagios =20
project, if it still have is its place into it and if it must hold its =20
tongue about what is not "corporate" for Nagios Enterprise.

The community want to help on the industrialization and support of =20
Nagios by free software business, but still want to keep its soul. The =20
community wish Nagios keep it's first rank, that was give to it by the =20
community, and the project came back to "the old good time" when foss =20
developers and people who just want to help had yet their words to say =20
against marketing communication.

We wish this open letter will not be a dead letter, because this will =20
finish to dig the gap between the author and its community, that =20
represent a major part of the project's power, and will not finish by =20
a fork that will divided

...[email truncated]...


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