I don't know if this will add anything to the conversation, but... I think David's concern is that, if wishes, he is able to reconstruct a version of ESME where WorldWide Conferencing, LLC holds copyright to the entirety, and he doesn't want there to be anything out there that some piece of that reconstruction no longer belongs to WorldWide Conferencing, LLC because it was transferred to ASF. He's very, very stringent about keeping the IP in his projects crystal clean and owned by his holding company. This is about what rights David has, not what rights ASF has, beyond David feeling ASF does not have the right to do anything that might cast doubt on his ownership of his contributions.
I also think he consider's "his contributions" to be anything to which Worldwide Conferencing, LLC held copyright when it was donated to ASF, whether he was the author of not. Just like ASF would consider yanking David's contributions from the ESME code base because he's done something to cast doubt on whether they were appropriately made, David is making sure ASF doesn't do anything to cast doubts on his ownership. I think Ethan's right, David is trying to be painstackingly clear in his wording. I'd make sure you're language is tight and makes both ASF's and David's rights clear, wait a week to make sure you're talking to David-the-programmer/lawyer, not David-the-rockstar, and have Anne or Dick contact him with whatever you decide and request constructive suggestions regarding any issues he has. I think he'll be reasonable. Just my 2 cents as an observer... On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 7:37 PM, Ethan Jewett <[email protected]> wrote: > On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 6:47 PM, Gianugo Rabellino > <[email protected]> wrote: > > > [...] Although I would > > argue that no one pointed out the scary elephant in the room, that is > > the fact that it is unclear whether David intended to contribute his > > code under the ICLA or under the AL. I'm still wary of signing off a > > release where, at a very least, we have to force our hand and make a > > decision on someone else's IP that while likely being licensed to us > > properly, maybe it's not. > > I think it's quite clear that David is licensing his copyright under > the CLA, not under the Apache license. To quote from his resignation > email: > > "PS -- My resignation in no way abrogates any rights in the > copywritten materials that I have licensed to the ASF under my CLA" > > It's possible that originally David was under the impression that the > CLA license contained exactly the same restrictions as the Apache 2.0 > license, which is not the case. However, I think he clarified that for > himself, or more likely meant something entirely different than what > was construed in the original discussion. In this case he's being > painstakingly clear in his wording. > > Ethan > -- http://erikengbrecht.blogspot.com/
