If Brian says this is the desired path, I'll do what is necessary to transfer domain ownership, or whatever. There was discussion a while ago about moving to a generic "safe zone" but one wasn't chosen for sure. This might be the point in which we finally make the distinction and commit.
On Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 4:14 AM, Henrik Ingo <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi all > > In April we started the process of becoming an Associated Project at > the Software in the Public Interest umbrella foundation (spi-inc.org). > Josh Berkus has kindly helped us formulate especially the part with a > Drizzle SPI Council. Since you weren't keen on introducing any kind of > elections, I think this kind of mostly passive body that still is more > than just one person is a great way to formulate our relationship with > the SPI. > > We are now ready to formally ask an SPI director to sponsor us through > the review and acceptance process. Before going there, this seems to > be a good point in time to let the Drizzle community review what our > input is (as we have no other decision making organ than this mailing > list). > > *Brian A and Mike S*: Could you specifically ok the draft agreement > texts at the end, that have your name on them. > > The assumption is that the SPI will ask lawyers to review (meaning: > rewrite) them, but it seems the best approach is that we propose some > text up front, so please ok these at this point. > > > henrik > > > ************************************** > [Placeholder for greeting and other polite introduction stuff] > > 1. The name of your project, and some details about it if we > wouldn't have heard of it before. > > Drizzle (http://drizzle.org/) > > Drizzle is one of the forks of MySQL, in fact the earliest of the > currently major ones. Unlike the other forks it diverges from the > parent MySQL code base, having completely replaced or re-factored many > areas of the code base. > > Drizzle was started by Brian Aker after Sun acquired MySQL AB. It was > sponsored by Sun employing a team several engineers and a manager. > After Oracle acquisition a large part of the team was employed by > Rackspace, who sponsored Drizzle until the first stable release. There > are about 20-30 people committing to Drizzle each month. Today the > core team is employed by various different companies. > > With the stable release out the interest in Drizzle is rising and also > vendors have started offering support for it. This is therefore a good > point in time to solidify and clarify the legal status of being a > non-profit community project. > > Drizzle has always been a community project and was never "owned" by > Sun or Rackspace, in any meaning of the word. > > It is mostly GPLv2 licensed (inherited from MySQL) with client > libraries licensed as BSD. > > You can find more information, such as the charter and scope on > www.drizzle.org. > > > 2. Which SPI services you will need. > > Currently some IPR assets that in some sense make up "the Drizzle > project" are held by various individuals. We'd like these assets to be > transferred/donated to the SPI, so that it is clear that Drizzle is a > community project legally anchored into a US non-profit foundation. > The assets to be transferred are: > > * Brian Aker asserts that he is the owner of the Drizzle(TM) > trademark, and transfer it to SPI. > * Michael Shadle is the owner of the drizzle.org internet domain name > and will transfer the ownership of that to SPI > * Brian Aker, on behalf of the drizzle-developers Launchpad team, > transfers the Launchpad projects "drizzle" and "drizzle-umbrella" and > the Launchpad hosted mailing lists: drizzle-discuss, > drizzle-benchmark, drizzle-builds, drizzle-advocacy and > drizzle-operations to SPI. > > We are aware that the first and third point are rather abstract acts, > but feel that explicitly pooling Drizzle related artifacts into the > hands of SPI has some value. > > For points two and three, the people now administering these online > properties would of course continue to do so. We'd like to know if we > need to make changes to our DNS registration that somehow reflects the > SPI ownership, or if we can just continue with the current > registration unchanged. > > At the end of this email I have drafted some simple agreements that > could be used as the basis for executing these transfers (Appendix A). > > We are also interested in using SPI to receive and spend donations for > Drizzle, as well as the related accounting and banking services. There > hasn't yet been a need for such, but as the community grows and > diversifies having a properly accounted Drizzle fund will surely be > useful. > > Finally, Drizzle occasionally gets non-monetary contributions from > companies, such as virtual servers. If it is possible for those > companies to get a tax benefit by way of donating these resources via > the SPI, that would of course be great. (We would like to know more > about if there is a lot of overhead in valuating these contributions.) > > > > 3. Who is going to be your liaison to SPI, and what your process > for selecting/electing liaisons is. > > We propose the following text: > > **************************************************************************************** > The following five Drizzle contributors will be named as the SPI > Council for Drizzle: > Brian Aker > Lee Bieber > Stewart Smith > Monty Taylor > Henrik Ingo > > This group will appoint a Liaison by simple majority vote, and may > replace the Liaison at any time. Henrik Ingo will be the first > Liaison. The Council may fill vacancies by majority vote of the > remaining Council members on resignation or absence of any Council > member. > **************************************************************************************** > > > Appendix A: Draft agreement texts for transfer of Drizzle assets > > **************************************************************************************** > Transfer of trademark and transfer of Launchpad online properties > > As "DRIZZLE" is the name of an open source software project started by > me, Brian Aker, and other people in 2008, and > As "DRIZZLE" is the trademark under which the software is released and > distributed, as well as the name which we refer to the project itself, > Being the owner of the DRIZZLE(TM) trademark I hereby donate it to > Software in the Public Interest Inc, a Not-for-profit corporation in > the state of New York, to hold on behalf of Drizzle, an SPI Associated > Project. > > Further, > As the Drizzle project uses the services of Launchpad.net for its > daily operation, I hereby on behalf of the drizzle-developers > Launchpad team, donate the following online Launchpad properties to > Software in the Public Interest Inc, to hold on behalf of Drizzle, an > SPI Associated Project: > * The projects "drizzle" and "drizzle-umbrella" > * Launchpad hosted mailing lists: drizzle-discuss, drizzle-benchmark, > drizzle-builds, drizzle-advocacy and drizzle-operations. > > For clarity, these donations are conditional upon Drizzle first having > been accepted by the SPI as an Associated Project, and the SPI having > agreed to receive donations on behalf of the Drizzle project. > > > Brian Aker > **************************************************************************************** > > > **************************************************************************************** > Transfer of drizzle.org internet domain name > > Being the current owner of the drizzle.org domain name, I, Michael > Shadle, hereby donate it to Software in the Public Interest Inc, a > Not-for-profit corporation in the state of New York, to hold on behalf > of Drizzle, an SPI Associated Project. > > For clarity, this donation is conditional upon Drizzle first having > been accepted by the SPI as an Associated Project, and the SPI having > agreed to receive donations on behalf of the Drizzle project. > > > Michael Shadle > **************************************************************************************** > > > -- > [email protected] > +358-40-8211286 skype: henrik.ingo irc: hingo > www.openlife.cc > > My LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=9522559 > _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~drizzle-discuss Post to : [email protected] Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~drizzle-discuss More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
