Hi all, I've been watching this thread with great interest. Kudos to Dan for all the work he's put into this.
I have zero experience in standardizing efforts etc, so this is probably a very naive question. What is the downside of approaching it the way TOML seems to be doing? The spec is published and worked on through github. It's moving forward and it's very easy for people to contribute. Of course there's no legal framework etc, but is that super important? On Wed, 30 Oct 2019 at 13:24, Lex Trotman <[email protected]> wrote: > On Wed, 30 Oct 2019 at 11:27, Dan Allen <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > Grant wrote: > > > What I don't understand is the claim that the requirement for a signed > agreement precludes contributions from individuals. > > Grant, you misunderstood, it doesn't _preclude_ contributions from > individuals, but it _discourages_ them (in my experience, see below). > > > > > There are a few ways to look at this. First, a contribution is typically > something concrete (like code), and we're not even talking about that at > this point. You can certainly join the mailinglist (once it's set up) and > contribute feedback, requests, and ideas. I seriously doubt that requires a > CLA, though I will need to check. > > It would be very unfortunate if it did, similarly for commenting on > github/lab or whichever platform is used. > > > > > When it comes to a concrete contribution, such as perhaps a section of > the spec document, then yes, a CLA is needed. The reason is, that work > needs to be protected. The CLA, in this case, is as much for your > protection as it is for the collective work. > > > > We need to come out of this process with a document that has a clean > legal history. Otherwise, it can threaten the totality of the work, and we > could lose control of our own specification / invention. The Eclipse > Foundation knows what they are doing and can provide those services that > we'd otherwise not be able to handle (at least, not without hiring our own > legal counsel). > > Indeed thats important, but the problem is that individuals do not > have access to a corporate legal dept to interpret the legal document > that is a CLA, and for many its a legal document from a foreign > jurisdiction, so besides the annoyance of actually executing the > paperwork, there is concern about what it actually means. > > My experience is that there is a concern that a CLA automatically > means they will lose the ability to use their own work, a concern > based on the FSF CLA that transfers copyright and so prevents the > originator from releasing their own work under another license. > > So individuals are discouraged from contributing, to use a plain > language comment from another forum, its "too much of a hassle and who > knows what is being signed up to". > > > > > Before I close this reply, I want to mention that I don't have all the > answers about running a spec. I'm very much in the process of learning. So > while I'm giving you the information as I understand it, IANAL and I defer > to an expert as to why this or that is necessary. > > Yes, we are being a little unfair demanding immediate answers, but > thats simply due to concern about the process or the delays or both. > Will try to be patient (but beware, not good at that :-). > > Cheers > Lex > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "asciidoc" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/asciidoc/CAKhWKDNE%2Bya%3D04X63ZSjJOnkUTcuJ%3DYvhzV_zfiT3kZRFxkj1w%40mail.gmail.com > . > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "asciidoc" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/asciidoc/CABSQcyiXeQ%3DfN9%2B%2BYXEOzEbZAbrNmM1ujsVdN50YZe53DMbrwg%40mail.gmail.com.
