Niall Pemberton wrote: > On 12/16/06, Martin van den Bemt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> > -1 from me. >> > >> > Harmony doesn't let anyone commit on their project unless they they >> > sign a statement saying they haven't looked at Sun's source code[1]. >> > AFAIK this is a similar issue and the POI policy [2] is designed to >> > protect POI, which as a user of POI is a good thing IMO. Even if this >> > fear is actually unfounded seems like a sensible policy to err on the >> > side of caution. >> >> Just FYI, the policy doesn't mean anything legally, so it doesn't help >> anyone. We have the ICLA that >> covers that. Keeping POI SVN closed, is as far as I could see, just >> based on the assumption that it >> means something. Besides that if this is a policy of some kind, >> where are the records ? > > Why is it any different than Harmony? If someone has received > knowledge of MS propriety formats under a NDA then wouldn't using that > knowledge to contribute to POI put the POI project at risk? If the > ICLA means that legally from an ASF POV it doesn't matter since the > responsibility/liability would be with the contributor then the same > logic could be applied to harmony. Seems to me that even if the "ASF > is covered" at the end of the day avoiding a legal issue with a big > entity such as MS is far more desirable than getting into a "tangle" > in the first place.
I am not saying the legal stuff would be bad, just that currently nothing is in place to have that covered. With harmony this is a Harmony policy, which is handled by the PMC and there are records and the board is aware of this. So effectively we don't have anything in place, just a statement on the website, so if we needed any protection based on the NDA stuff, we don't have anything to show for. I cannot start with getting the legal stuff figured out when POI is acting as it's own entity, without even any oversight from the Jakarta PMC members representing POI. But I think I made that point clear in some of the replies i've given. > > I also think its a mistake to deal with whatever issues people think > there are in POI via a vote. Back in March the POI devs voted to > exclude POI from this policy of opening SVN access. If we think the > reason underlying POI's exclusion from this policy is not valid then > it would have been far better to start a discussion with them > regarding this first - rather than launching straight into a vote. I'd > have rather seem an attempt at consensus first rather than going > straight for conflict. I could have started this in another way, although I doubt consensus would be reached if I did that another way. POI is living in it's own universe currently (we are even talking about "them") and since this issue concerns the whole of Jakarta and things need to happen now,because of the lack of oversight given by the PMC members representing POI. Opening up POI is a first step in the right direction, next steps would be mentoring the POI project, get the "legal issue" straightened out (that is making an official Jakarta policy if that is needed and having official records). Alternatives like POI going TLP (as was mentioned by a couple of people) would also be an option, so that they deal with the board directly, but since the POI committers aren't ready for that (see the mentoring part), that would be a hard case to sell. > > Seems to me that svn access isn't the root of the issue here and > therefore a red herring, since changing that isn't IMO going to > resolve whatever the real issues people think there are. svn access is the first step towards improvement. Svn access for me *is* a real issue, I think the vote made that clear. Don't forget the vote in March where everyone voted +1 except the POI committers. Now we are 8 months further and it is time they join the majority in my opinion. If they want to have separate svn access at this time, I think they are stating that they do not want to be part of Jakarta. Mvgr, Martin > > Niall > >> Mvgr, >> Martin > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
