> This really should be your first step. There is a continuum of
> choices here, any of which would be acceptable to us as part of the
> process of granting a MetaCard license to UFP/OpenCard members:
<SNIP>
I would prefer the GNU "copyleft" form, as it protects our interests
fully, and it ensures that OpenCard and it's derivitives stay
OpenSource.
> One of the latter two would probably be the easiest to implement. The
> Mozilla and BSD licenses require an original copyright holder, which
> doesn't exist in this case. The Perl license is kind of long, but
> could be used without modification (see
> http://language.perl.com/misc/Artistic.html). True PD distribution
> just requires a one line statement of that fact someplace in the
> package.
It should be possible to set up a group copyright, just like the
company MetaCard owns the copyright to MetaCard, not an
individual within the company (I would assume so anyway). We
would have to register the OpenCard group officially and I don't
know what process to go by for that, especially due to the
international aspects of the OpenCard group.
> I would also recommend you appoint a "leader" to coordinate this (and
> any other) decision making process. Anarchy is fine for some things,
> but the key characteristic of all successful Open Source projects that
> I know of is that there is one person ultimately responsible for
> making decisions. Without that, you'll end up with just a lot of talk
> and not much to show for it (which is about exactly what you've got so
> far). I open the floor to nominations...
I think the idea of a leader is quite sound, but we need to determine
exactly how the group will work before we get too carried away with
this. The UFP got part way through this process a while back, but
no vote was ever taken and I'm not sure what happened to the idea.
Come to think of it, this appears to be the general context of the
UFP and OpenCard in general so far. Neither group has actually
released a product or made a definite decision so far. We've never
created an infrastructure to use when voting and hence haven't
voted on anything. This is really quite concerning. OpenCard
needs to define it's internal structure as soon as possible so that
we can get some really productive work done.
> Scott
Adrian Sutton.
