Project Communication Channels Etiquette about community HOT 2 CLOSED

Worth noting the Foundation, as part of its (our) marketing efforts to promote open source efforts generally, has taken a comparatively more inclusive approach towards what events, training, etc. to include on 1) the FINOS event calendar (https://www.finos.org/news-and-events) and 2) This Week at FINOS ("TWAF"), with a general bias toward events in which FINOS members are involved (e.g,. speaking at), are sponsoring, etc., typically limited to those that are related to FINOS projects and/or strategic initiatives, though we also share industry and open source events the FINOS staff think are of general interest to our community via those channels.

A difference is that the Google Groups mailing lists are first and foremost for project collaboration, and as such the general desire is that posts to the mailing lists be directly relevant to the project scope itself and available to any project participant.

from community.

Thanks for raising this issue Rob. Here are some thoughts from OpenFin.

We don't think issues like this should be delegated to project leads. As with the Code of Conduct, we think it would be better for FINOS to implement a consistent policy across all FINOS projects and working groups.

We’re skeptical of the “no fee” approach. This ignores that there are other commercial benefits to be obtained by individuals advertising their events in a group. Furthermore, there are privacy implications if we allow commercial use of the message boards (e.g. users have opted in for a particular purpose, not for their info to be used for marketing purposes). We’re also concerned about a competitive dynamic that creates a race between multiple Members to promote their services (free or otherwise).

Our view is that it is cleaner for FINOS to simply enact a broad non-solicitation policy. There are plenty of venues for people to promote their products and services including their own social networks, mailing lists, conferences, press, etc. We feel that allowing promotion goes against the spirit of the group and encourages further promotion.

Most non-profit educational focused groups and communities enact a non-solicitation policy. Here’s what we propose: "The spirit of this group is to share information and materials that enrich the community -- you may not use FINOS or its various project groups to solicit customers, clients, or other commercial partnerships for your benefit."

from community.