On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 2:35 AM, Johannes Rudolph < johannes.rudo...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> > Just to let you know: This policy (and the form it is stated) seems > overly strict to me when we are talking about small fixes/typos and > instantly discourages me from sending in any more of them (i.e. > perhaps I will do it anyway but with a bad feeling). > Most open source software is polluted with code from who knows where. This is problematic from a protection of rights standpoint and from an end user standpoint. >From the protection of rights, if there's no single copyright holder where all contributors have signed a legal agreement assigning their rights to that copyright holder, there is no single entity that can assert the license as against an infringer (note that in the case of the Apache license, there's very few rights that can be asserted because the license grant can only be revoked if a licensor files a patent infringement case against the licensee.) However, it's still important that there be an entity that can assert the rights in the software. If there are 50 different authors of the software, all 50 authors would have to join together (each with separate lawyers) to assert rights in the software. That's untenable. The second reason is for the end users. You as an end user of Lift know that the IP is clean (well, at least if you trust that I've been adhering to the policies that I say I'm following, but for anyone who really cares, I can produce every single Lift IP assignment and we can trace through every commit and verify that each commit was made by someone who has assigned rights to Lift's copyright holder.) This means that if you deploy a Lift-based application, you have very little risk of legal action from a third party asserting copyright violations. The second point is very important. I know of at least one GC (head lawyer) of a company we've all heard of that reviews every single license agreement of every piece of software used at the company. For open source, she makes sure that the open source provider is following good practices because her company has billions of dollars of sales each year and would be a huge pot of gold for someone with a copyright claim. Her comments about Lift's license and the way I manage the IP was very encouraging... she viewed Lift's IP cleanliness as top tier for any software she's ever reviewed. That means that developers from her company can use Lift without her getting involved anymore. So, the issue boils down to you posting something that's work that you could assert a copyright claim in. Submitting a change of a single letter, a type-o, is not something that you could assert a copyright claim in. I made the change that you suggested. Submitting a one or two line bug fix is also something that's unlikely to be copyrightable work (although I tend to be the judge of that and discourage other Lift committers from making the call.) If I determine the bug fix is not copyrightable, I'll roll it into Lift. Submitting a new feature with code is likely to be copyrightable. What we do in that situation is look at the interface and implement the interface our own way. So, I'm sorry you think the policy is harsh and discourages community participation. I developed the policy to protect users of Lift and make sure that they can build Lift-based applications without worry. I wanted to be sure that Lift users never have to worry about the issues that SCO brought to every Linux users' doorstep a few years back. And make no mistake, we are at the beginning, not the end, of figuring out the real open source legal landscape. Thanks, David > I know and understand: It is your project and in the first place the > committers owe nothing to Us, The Users. I can understand (and do > value) the overall decision to let the concensus of committers drive > the development instead of the quickest patch sent to the ML. > > Still, for small contributions this policy looks for me like a lost > opportunity to let the broader community polish up little things noone > else noticed yet. > > Actually, I just started using lift and I really liked what I've seen > so far. The question is if I'll still actively and openly try to fix > things which occur to me (as a beginner) or if I fix things quitely > and stay a passive user. > > Or am I completely mistaken and misunderstood the policy? > > Johannes > > > > -- Lift, the simply functional web framework http://liftweb.net Beginning Scala http://www.apress.com/book/view/1430219890 Follow me: http://twitter.com/dpp Git some: http://github.com/dpp --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Lift" group. To post to this group, send email to liftweb@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to liftweb+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/liftweb?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
