Allen Pulsifer schrieb:

>> When a developer contributes code to the C# compiler or the 
>> Mono runtime engine, we require that the author grants Novell 
>> the right to relicense his/her contribution under other 
>> licensing terms.
>> 
>> This allows Novell to re-distribute the Mono source code to 
>> parties that might not want to use the GPL or LGPL versions 
>> of the code.
> 
> Thank you for the example.  I have to respect the fact the Novell is being
> very honest and open about it.  Conversely, when discussing the JCA, Sun
> studiously avoids mentioning the fact that the JCA allows Sun to relicense
> contributions under any license it choose, including a commercial license.

I'm not sure if you are right here. Let's look at what Sun writes in his
documentation about the contributor agreement, see
http://www.sun.com/software/opensource/contributor_agreement.jsp:

>| Most importantly from Sun's perspective, it allows the original donor
>| of the code base (Sun, for Sun-sponsored projects), *the ability to
>| offer commercial, binary distributions* of the project. 
and

>| By accepting an SCA, Sun
>| 
>| * promises that your contributions will remain Free and open-source
>| software (i.e. will be published and will remain available by Sun
>| under a Free or open-source software license).

and

>| 2.
>| Q:
>| What can Sun do with my contribution?
>| A:
>| Sun may exercise all rights that a copyright holder has

and

>| It allows Sun to sponsor the projects to which you want to
>| contribute, while retaining the ability to offer commercial licenses.

and

>| Sun will make certain that any
>| contributions that are published under any license, are available
>| under an FSF or OSI approved license as well.
If that really needed more clarification I agree that this should be
done, but IMHO this is clear enough.

But a clarification of the implications of the JCA wasn't what Michael
Meeks asked for (and BTW also nobody else until now). He pointed at Sun
for asking for a JCA without mentioning that his company is doing
exactly the same in other projects. I felt the need to correct that
false impression.

Ciao,
Mathias

-- 
Mathias Bauer (mba) - Project Lead OpenOffice.org Writer
OpenOffice.org Engineering at Sun: http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS
Please don't reply to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]".
I use it for the OOo lists and only rarely read other mails sent to it.

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