At 10:15 AM +1000 on 7/8/99, Paul Sutton wrote:
>>>Alain : I disagree. What you write below actually confirms rather than
>>>refutes my argument that the licencing issue is potentially explosive.
>>
>>Later, it will be. But presently, there are two people who need to agree.
>>Uli and myself.
>
>Adrian: This is where you're being a bit simplistic (no offence intended).
>I have voiced my opinions on this list and I'm sure on some things you
>have taken notice of those opinions, thus you have used my intellectual
>property and you must comply with the licencing conditions I put on it.
>Now at this stage there's nothing that I could specifically say was my
>idea or my contribution, but in the future I guarantee you there will be.
>Contributions are not nessecarily code. Remember, there's the interface
>and collaboration infrastructure that are vital to OpenCard as well. We
>all need to agree as an organisation on the licencing agreement, and we
>need to know before we start contributing work, or now, as soon as
>possible. Besides, we still have MetaCard waiting in the wings for us to
>make this decision so that we can get started on the UI.
True. I agreee. I take back my previous comment; you (and the others who
have pointed this out) are right. We should discuss licencing now.
>It's not acceptable to have a certain set of rules for stacks that use
>this set of commands and a different set of rules for stacks that use a
>different set.
Agreed.
>People who don't want their work to be released under the OpenCard licence
>should not contribute that work to the group, if they do, it is under the
>OpenCard licence or it shouldn't be accepted.
Agreed.
>Adrian: Two people can write the same line of code, I've done it with
>other students in my course. We both sit at the computer and I might
>start typing the line, get stuck and they'll complete it, or maybe there's
>a bug and they find it. People will change other people's code in
>OpenCard, to add new features and to fix bugs. It will quickly become
>impossible to determine who owns the intellectual property.
True. I guess I'm too used to being the person who finds the bug and writes
the difficult line(s) of code for the rest of the class <g>.
>>So, who gets to sell it? I don't think that such a prohibition is
>>understandable. Quite frankly, if we allow people to distribute it, who
>>would buy it -- unless it was somehow more convienent?
>
>Adrian: Because, they're guaranteed to sell some copies. Maybe they'll
>sell it under a different name to confuse people. Either way, our work is
>being taken and used for someone else's profit.
I think I can agree that only people who actually make a contribution to
OpenCard should be able to sell it. A contribution could mean providing it
with a stack of your own devise, creating a collection, or writing parts of
OpenCard itself. The problem is who decided what is a contribution. We'd
need some objective rules.
>
>Adrian: What about those who will contribute in the future? We deserve a
>say as well, after all our future contributions will have to be under the
>same licence.
Well, then your're part of the "he" who writes the code.
>
>Adrian: For me what this boils down to is if we choose a licencing
>agreement that I agree with, I will continue to be a part of this
>collaboration and contribute where I can, if not, I will unsubscribe from
>this mailing list and focus my attention on UFP and other projects. I'm
>quite sure there are others who feel the same way. This is the first of
>many issues that will be make or break for the group. If we can work
>together and solve this problem, the outlook is good, if we keep putting
>this off because it's too hard to agree on, then the project has almost no
>chance of succeding, because there will be many issues like this in the
>future and we need to learn how to make decisions on them.
Ok. I'll try and get a serious discussion of licences underway. Stay tuned.
I'll do it to make up for a certain rather ill-thaught out comment which
I'm now going to attempt to hide under the rug.
