Joerg Barfurth wrote:
Many OSS projects (almost all big ones faik) have some form of copyright assignment. Not all of them care as much for contributers' worries.
Yes. But in my (limited) experience, I never saw them saying "giving us your copyright is ok because we let you keep it too".
Suppose you are a coder, or proto-coder, and are hesitantly thinking of contributing to OOo. You probably don't trust Sun much.
Probably that is the problem. Why is that probable?
Judging from the licenses people seem to pick (GPL) and the fact that Sun seems to suffer heavy mistrust right now.
And why do you expect to go to a project that is heavily sponsored by and very much associated with Sun, saying "For starters, I don't trust you. But please trust me that the stuff I contribute won't ever cause (legal or other) problems for the project."
True. And I'm trying to suggest something in between that might be acceptable to both. In particular, I suggest that add-ons not require the JCA. This is the advantage I see:
1) Potential contributors can start with an add-on, without dealing with the JCA.
2) Sun is still safe because add-ons are independent, third-party programs. Just like python (which OOo currently ships). If there is a problem, it can be removed.
Therefore, I think that not requiring the JCA for add-ons would (1) remove much of the barrier and (2) retain nearly all of the benefits for Sun.
Huh? How could Sun keep OOo out of it?
Because Sun effectly picks what goes into OOo. Sun controls OOo development.
If Sun really would start to add contributed stuff to StarOffice, but refuse to provide the same integration for OOo, then that would be a political desaster for Sun
This is Sun we are talking about. They seem to make a political disaster every month. That's why so many people don't trust it. :-(
OTOH if you insist on using a license that prevents Sun from using your contribution in OOo, then that shows a very asymmetric attitude:
That's a separate issue now. Let's not confuse (1) giving your copyright to Sun with (2) a particular choice of license.
We can talk about what licenses should be allowed. It should be a license that doesn't inhibit distribution. Look, right now Sun is distributing Python with OOo, even though Sun does't own the copyright to Python. Sun does it because Python is third-party and it has a license that allows distribution. This is what I'm thinking for add-ons. Same idea.
Have a look at http://external.openoffice.org for the process, to which such components are submitted.
I think requiring a separate legal review for each contributed add-on is a much higher barrier ...
Hhmm... I see. :-(
Cheers, Daniel. -- Senior Representative Digital Distribution Global Training Services Pty. Ltd. Premier OpenOffice.org and StarOffice Online Training providers http://www.digitaldistribution.com
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