Hi Alex,
On 2007-01-14, at 08:20 , Alex Thurgood wrote:
Louis Suarez-Potts wrote:
Hi Louis,
My aim was not to insult you or attempt to cleave a rift in the
community as a whole, but it is a common, and rather annoying
tendency, in free software projects, to consider that copyrights
can just be considered as equivalent to a piece of paper that one
may dispose of wherever one wishes. This is inherent in the anglo-
saxon culture of copyright, which literally is considered an object
of property, and particularly in North America. One only has to
look at common copyright licences or assignment agreements by US
based software companies to understand that. The JCA is one such
example, but the agreement that the FSF asks coders to sign and
assign their rights to them isn't (or wasn't, I haven't seen it
lately) much better, to be honest.
Of course.... But perhaps then you might have actually looked at the
history of the issue. But it's of no matter now. I do think that
diving into discussions with preconceived notions, esp. when they
tend to be unfriendly, gets us nowhere.
<snip>
The problem with documentation is a thorny one, as we have already
seen in the past. The absence of a clear policy from the start has
lead to branching of the documentation project, and the creation of
other communities of authors who were dissatisfied with the
situation as it stood. The lack of stance and a clear, common
policy by the OOo Community was telling in this regard. Things have
got better, but to be honest, there is still no clear policy
statement, at least not to my knowledge, or unless I am very much
mistaken, which I could be, since I don't intimately follow the
politics of the OOo Community.
There is actually such a statement, and we have had it from pretty
early on, if not from the start (the PDL, for instance, only came
into being after Scott created the Documentation project). It's
mentioned or referenced from our protocols for starting a project
page [0], our license page [1], and our license faq [2]. Problem is
that it's mentioned too many places and is not thunderingly clear in
all languages. I have not checked if it is also on the Documentation
project. (It comes down to documentation and noncode: PDL, and for
noneditable docs, CC; code: LGPL via JCA; if JCA signed and one
contributes docs, then absent any other license claim, LGPL, which,
as Christian pointed out--he's not alone--makes little sense when it
comes to documentation, but does do what is wanted, viz, allow for
collaboration.)
It would be interesting to know whether such a topic has ever been
seriously discussed at the CC, for example, or whether public
consultation has been requested. Certainly, I have never seen any,
and am present on many of the mailing lists, albeit no longer on
the English users list (too high volume).
We've discussed this many times, as André and others can refresh
you :-) And the discussions have been as serious as they can get.
In a previous discussion with André, I considered setting up a
Legal project within the Community, in order to be able to discuss
this kind of thing as a forum for debating and obtaining agreement
as to policy statements that could be made by the Community and
appear on the site. This wouldn't IMHO be the sole remit of such a
project, but it would of course require expertise from my peers in
the various participating countries, assuming we actually have any
(which I don't know at this present time). At the moment, I don't
have the time to commit to such a project, at least not on my own,
and it would inevitably mean my giving up participation in some of
the others, qa testing for example, or FR documentation, but I am
still giving it some serious thought, because a project of this
size needs a legal conscience of some kind, and as yet it has none,
save that offered by its major sponsor, Sun, to which we,
unfortunately, in the Community are not privy.
Actually, this project does have a legal conscience, and I am sorry
to hear you think it does not. All CC discussions are transparent
and have touched on legal issues. But you are right in one
particular: we cannot, as we do not own the IP to OOo, determine the
license for it. But we do make every effort to bring to the
community legal issues that bear upon its contributions, and these
include licenses.
That said, as I wrote in my response to Charles' point, a legal
project could make sense (also a lot of discussion) but there are
many other projects out there with similar concerns, and also lists
that are focused on license discussions.
But I think we've had our says here, no? And I am loath to use of
QA's space any more; I apologize for taking up so much time, as it
is, on a misunderstanding. If people want to continue this
discussion, perhaps [email protected] would be reasonable.
Alex
Best,
louis
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