Just posting for the record IRC chat with Brian. (I might want to reference this later on in the process.)
Tasks for me (and Josh): - add sentence about authors retaining their copyright. - I'll probably go back to formulating Appendix A as questions to the SPI legal folks rather than proposing agreement text. At this point I'm just happy to record Brian and Mike agreeing with the general plan. ********************************************************* [23:54:33] <krow> hingo: Shoot (here) [23:55:22] <hingo> krow 1) Can you go on public record (reply to the email on drizzle-discuss) that Appendix A in this is ok with you: https://lists.launchpad.net/drizzle-discuss/msg07947.html [23:55:46] <hingo> krow: It's just a draft and will be wrangled by lawyers later, but good if you can ok it as a starting point. [23:57:02] <krow> hingo: Let me read (I've been gone to a wedding for the last half week) [23:57:16] <hingo> krow 2: I just sent another email, no archive link yet, it would be good if you could be on the spi-private mailing list while they process our application. To do that you need to apply as an individual for SPI membership (twice, to reach contributing member status) at https://members.spi-inc.org/ [23:57:52] <hingo> krow: the second task will interrupt you for approx 10 minutes. The first not much. [23:57:56] <hingo> EOF [23:58:01] <krow> hingo: A couple of things. 1) I don't own the Drizzle trademark (I've never bothered to register it). [23:58:47] <krow> hingo: I think it is important to say that copyright is held by the authors (i.e. If Sun/Oracle/whomever contribute code they own the copyright on it). [23:59:30] <hingo> krow: Trademarks needn't be registered. (TM) are unregistered, (R) are registered. It's quite expensive to register in fact. So just claiming "common law" TM trademark is quite usual. [23:59:56] <hingo> krow: But we can rethink if you don't like it, just saying it is possible to do this way. [00:00:00] - {Day changed to Wed Jun 8 00:00:00 2011} [00:00:13] <hingo> krow: Good point on copyright. [00:04:00] --> wultsch ([email protected]) has joined #drizzle [00:06:07] <hingo> krow: I can see an alternative where SPI would just claim the trademark directly, leaving it unanswered whether anyone owned it in the past. Their legal experts would have to weigh in whether that is possible, or if they prefer to have it donated explicitly from someone claiming to be previous owner. [00:08:08] <-- roylyseng ([email protected]) has quit (Ping timeout: 260 seconds) [00:14:41] --> roylyseng ([email protected]) has joined #drizzle [00:14:55] <krow> hingo: Ok,.... I don't know who could assert the trademark (I've never cared much honestly). [00:15:51] <-- ded ([email protected]) has quit (Quit: This computer has gone to sleep) [00:15:52] <hingo> krow: I'll keep both options open and see what SPI feels. They might prefer something where you say that in the case that you could have been the owner of the TM, you in any case wish for SPI to own it from now on. ********************************************************* henrik On Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 2:14 PM, 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 > -- [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
