Here's the background information that I prepared for the lawyers ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Tom Morris <[email protected]> Date: Wed, Dec 19, 2007 at 1:41 PM Subject: ArgoUML relicensing backgrounder To: "Bradley M. Kuhn" <[email protected]>, [email protected], [email protected] Cc: Linus Tolke <[email protected]>
Hi Bradley et al, Here's a revised backgrounder which provides a little more detail on top of what Linus provided, followed by some of the questions that we have. Sorry it's so close to meeting time! Tom The ArgoUML project has had 50 developers who've committed code during its life, including 15 who have contributed in the past year. Recent contributors live in Sweden, England, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, Romania, Brazil, and the United States. Some early code contributions were done as university class assignments by entire classes or study groups and only have collective identification of the group, not its individual members. The number and scope, although not the geographic diversity, of contributions can be seen on this Ohloh analysis page http://www.ohloh.net/projects/3644/analyses/latest/contributors The current license is the original BSD copyright/license with the Regents of the University of California as copyright holder. A copy is attached. It contains no developer indemnification which is one of the reasons we would like to revise it. No one with UCal affiliation has contributed code in the last 5 years. The proposed new license is the Eclipse Public License http://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl-v10.html This was chosen as a balance between the fully viral GPL style licenses and the laissez-faire BSD, Apache, etc licenses. The EPL was chosen over the other licenses in this category, e.g. LGPL & GPL with Classpath exemption, because of our past work with Eclipse and our desire to further align ourselves with them in the future, but this isn't an overriding concern if there's a good reason to choose one of the others. Questions: - What, if any, are there any legal implications of relicensing that we need to be aware of? - From a legal point of view, are there any reasons to prefer one of the other "semi-viral" licenses, namely the LGPL or the GPL with the Classpath exception? - Who should hold the copyright for new code? Can a virtual entity like "The ArgoUML team" hold the copyright or does it need to be a legal entity like Software Freedom Conservancy? What text should we use in the copyright notice? - We would add the new copyright header to all existing source modules and use it exclusively with all new modules. The license would switch to the EPL at the next release. Is there anything else that we need worry about from a mechanics point of view? - Is there any conflict between the EPL and the BSD license requirement that the BSD copyright headers be maintained? - Does it make sense to introduce a contributors agreement as part of the relicensing process? This would obviously only cover future contributions. What advantages would it offer? One disadvantage is that it may make people less likely to contribute, so we'd want it to be providing value to the project. - Does it make sense to try and get the UC Regents to assign the copyright for the current code to the project? The project was initiated by a UCal grad student a decade ago, but no one affiliated with the school has been involved for a very long time. We probably should have revised the copyright a number of years ago. Is it too late to fix it for things which clearly have no UCal involvement? And is the cost of dealing with the Regents too high? - Is the act of putting the BSD copyright header on a new source file an implicit assignment of copyright, absent a legal agreement of assignation? Does the original author still hold copyright? If the original author still holds the copyright, this would allow us to relicense recent source modules which are sole author or for which we have clear provenance and the agreement of all authors without involving the UC Regents. // Copyright (c) 1996-2007 The Regents of the University of California. All // Rights Reserved. Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this // software and its documentation without fee, and without a written // agreement is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice // and this paragraph appear in all copies. This software program and // documentation are copyrighted by The Regents of the University of // California. The software program and documentation are supplied "AS // IS", without any accompanying services from The Regents. The Regents // does not warrant that the operation of the program will be // uninterrupted or error-free. The end-user understands that the program // was developed for research purposes and is advised not to rely // exclusively on the program for any reason. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE // UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BE LIABLE TO ANY PARTY FOR DIRECT, INDIRECT, // SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, INCLUDING LOST PROFITS, // ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE AND ITS DOCUMENTATION, EVEN IF // THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF // SUCH DAMAGE. THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS ANY // WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF // MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE SOFTWARE // PROVIDED HEREUNDER IS ON AN "AS IS" BASIS, AND THE UNIVERSITY OF // CALIFORNIA HAS NO OBLIGATIONS TO PROVIDE MAINTENANCE, SUPPORT, // UPDATES, ENHANCEMENTS, OR MODIFICATIONS. ------------------------------------------------------ http://argouml.tigris.org/ds/viewMessage.do?dsForumId=450&dsMessageId=1403298 To unsubscribe from this discussion, e-mail: [[email protected]]. 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