IMHO add in changelog file for each component the name of contributors is ok, i see that in many open source projects.
Regards, On Tue, Jul 26, 2011 at 1:15 PM, Fabien Pinckaers <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello Stefan, > > Thank you for your feedback. > > > thank you for your passionate reaction. I believe that you share the same > passion for Open Source software and the OpenERP products in particular as > we do. > > Yes, and I take this opportunity to also thank you for the great contrib > you did too. > > > > It is vital for us to contribute to the OpenERP framework and the core > modules, so we would always prefer the option of copyright assignment in a > contributor agreement. You raise a number of valid issues with regards to > protecting the OpenERP products against copyright violations and other > problems which argue in favour of such copyright assignment. I do not think > that anyone can argue against them, and it is for such reasons that projects > like Plone and KDE may ask for copyright assignment in a contributor > agreement. > > Actually, my preferred solution is the public domain for small > contributions to the framework or the official modules. > > I think it's very boring to ask people to sign a document and send us by > fax/mail just because they contributed a few lines of code -> doing > contracts with community members is not the way I see a good collaboration > (this was the reason why we did not made it before: we supposed that if a > contributor did not put a copyright in his code, merge proposal or patch, it > is considered public domain) > > But I understand some may prefer a contributor agreement. If some wants a > contributor agreement, I propose to use the one of the FSFE. Does anybody > have any bad feedback about this contributor agreement ? > > So, my question is: is it ok for you to put contributions to the framework > or official addons in the public domain or you prefer a contributor > agreement ? (of course, your own modules should be under your own copyright) > > > However, the problem is that assigning copyrights to a commercial entity > does not always help when the issues that you mention occur. We know you > personally to be a great proponent of Open Source but your successor or your > creditors may not. OpenERP SA may be sold to a different party, or take up a > very different attitude for some other reason. When that happens, and > OpenERP SA has all the copyrights, we will never be able to update the > license to protect the OpenERP products or enforce the licenses in court. > > OpenERP SA will not be sold to third parties, I own a significant part of > the shares to ensure that. The biggest risk for OpenERP SA is not to be sold > but to fail building a profitable business model allowing to sustain the > fast evolution of the OpenERP product. In that case OpenERP may finish like > GNUe, adempiere, ... in a few years. That would be the worst scenario in my > opinion. > > But even if it is (suppose I die in an accident), it does not change the > fact that OpenERP is currently under AGPLv3. Nobody can change this. > > > > If we follow best practices in open source, then we set up a non-profit > membership organisation as in the case of Plone and KDE, for contributors to > assign their copyrights to. The FSFE/KDE agreement [1] would be perfect for > that. > > By doing that, you may have the invert effect than what you expect: > > * the more people are involved in a decision, the less chances you have to > make the evolution -> if 50% of the contributors have to agree to change > from AGPLv3 to a potential AGPLv4, you have a risk that you can never > upgrade. I would never take this risks for OpenERP > * I don't imaging starting a discussion to define the status of such an > organisation. It would be a long debate and we all have more important > things to do than legal researches, discussion on status, official meetings > and votes, ... > * just imagine the questions you have to cover in the status: > - who can join ? --> those that commit more than 1% of the lines of > code (then there would be only OpenERP) ? what do you do if a lot of devs > from microsoft that contribute and join the association ? > - how do you take take desisions ? 80% of votes according to the > importance of the contributor based on the lines of code --> then only > OpenERP sa can take the decisions. > - who will pay the costs of the organization ? what will be the > budget and forecasted costs ? how can the association enforce the protection > of the license in a court ? --> this can quickly costs more than 100k$ > - what's the responsibilities of the organization ? it is logic that > the one who get the copyright ensure the evolution of his code. > - if the association decide to remove the "private use" clause of > OpenERP Enterprise, who will pay my developers that are partly financed by > this ? If nobody, who will ensure OpenERP will grow quickly in the future. > > As a summary, we clearly all have more important things to do than this. I > don't want OpenERP community to enter in such debates, it's a waste of time. > > > > > What do you think about putting all small contributions to official modules > and framework in the public domain ? this is the best solution as it does > not require a copyright assignment (to OpenERP SA or to an association). > > This solution is also very fair as a contributor can apply a special > licence for his own code (that he may use in others softwares) and we can > put his code in the core without having to ask a contributor agreement > signature. We protect both the unity of OpenERP and the personnal contrib of > each one. > > > -- > Fabien > _______________________________________________ > Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~openerp-community > Post to : [email protected] > Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~openerp-community > More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp > -- Cristian Salamea @ovnicraft
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