The issue at hand is simply called theft, and everyone (both inside and outside the community) is most welcome to point it out and ask for it to be fixed. We thank those individuals who point it out, whether in IPMC or otherwise, and look for ways to address it as soon as possible.
Fixing this issue is in the best interest of the foundation, the project, the community, the release manager, the copyright owner... everyone. We don't push back on this. We don't look for reasons why the individual has no standing in pointing it out. We don't find excuses. (If we do and/or continue as nothing happened, we'd just make a case that the theft was willful and action negligent -- we do not do that.) So... to be direct -- just fix the damn problem, thank Justin for pointing it out, and stop arguing. You may find that fixing the problem requires no code changes. If you'd just politely email the copyright owner, explain the situation, that ASF is a charity, offer to promote the photographer in legal notices, you may find that a reasonable person will just grant you the permission you need and thank you for helping promote his work. This is particularly true if you ask for a few photos, out of the photographer's huge collection. It is often as simple as that. (Try that instead of arguing here, but make sure to phrase things properly so that everyone understands all implications of licensing downstream and upstream.) On Sat, Mar 30, 2019 at 2:31 PM Craig Russell <apache....@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Ted, > > > On Mar 30, 2019, at 2:22 PM, Ted Dunning <ted.dunn...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > On Sat, Mar 30, 2019 at 1:57 PM Craig Russell <apache....@gmail.com> > wrote: > > > >> .... > >>> copyright issues on the cute cat and rabbit photos [1] probably mean > >> that they cannot put that release in the ASF distribution area even if > they > >> do get 3 +1s without legal and infra approval. > >> > >> We have to look at risk here. Is there a risk that the owner of the > images > >> is going to make trouble? > >> > > > > I am kind of stunned to hear this. > > > > > The web site where the images came from says: > > > > We have an extensive commercial picture library of professional Nature > and > >> Pet photographs. Our images are sold on a rights managed basis and can > be > >> bought for specific and exclusive uses. All the images on this website > are > >> ©Warren Photographic and watermarked with our logo. > > > > (see https://www.warrenphotographic.co.uk/about.php) > > > > This sounds a lot like serious photographers trying to make a living. > > Anybody who goes to the trouble of watermarking their images is pretty > > serious about their work and about people stealing that work. > > > > But aside from that, quite frankly, Apache is not in the business of > > judging whether somebody is powerful enough or aware enough or rich > enough > > or even just cantankerous enough to make trouble for us about copyright > > infringement. > > This is way over the top. Please don't go there. > > > We don't even do adversarial forks of open source material > > where the license says that it is perfectly fine to do. > > > > So how can anybody imagine that it is OK to steal some images from people > > who do not grant the rights to use just because they aren't likely to > "make > > trouble"? > > > > I am not arguing that the image issue does not need to be resolved. Just > the opposite. > > Perhaps I should have elaborated: Is there a risk that during the next few > weeks that it will take us to either get permission or remove the image > that the owner is going to make trouble? > > Craig > > > > > >>> > >>> What do other IPMC members think? > >> > >> I think that if others want to dig into the details, I would encourage > >> them to do so. But at this point, I do not believe that the issues you > >> raised warrant a -1 on the release. > > > > > > The issue of the photos has been previously raised. The suggested > solution > > was to delete the photos. > > > > It should be done. > > Craig L Russell > Secretary, Apache Software Foundation > c...@apache.org <mailto:c...@apache.org> http://db.apache.org/jdo < > http://db.apache.org/jdo> >
