Hi Andrew - Andrew wrote On 12/21/05 06:25,: > I'm considering contributing code to opensolaris, but I have some questions > about the SCA. > > 1. sun_contributor_agreement.pdf contains the following seven fields for > contact information: > Full Name > E-mail > Username(s) > Mailing Address > Country > Telephone > Fax > Which of these fields are mandatory, and which are not?
As far as I know, all of the fields are mandatory. If there are some that don't apply, such as a fax number, just note that there is none. > > > 2. Section 1 of the SCA reads: > “Contribution” means any object code, source code, specification, > documentation, e-mail, sample, tutorial, posting, or > any other related materials submitted by You to a Project, excluding any > submissions that You clearly designate as "Not > a Contribution." > > Would it be acceptable to replace that with the following before I sign the > agreement: > > “Contribution” means any object code, source code, specification, > documentation, e-mail, sample, tutorial, posting, or > any other related materials submitted by You to a Project, that You clearly > designate as "A Contribution under the terms of the Sun Contributor > Agreement." > > The reason for this is obvious. We can not accept a contributor agreement that has had text replaced. > > > 3. I've seen various commentaries about Sun's requirement of joint copyright > ownership for opensolaris contributions, including the precedence of other > open source projects, claims of practical necessity of joint ownership when > bringing infringement suits, charges that Sun's goal is to reserve the > ability to avoid releasing its future versions of Solaris under the CDDL, and > claims that the CDDL, despite its extensive vetting by Sun's own lawyers, > might contain mistakes which Sun would need to correct in the future. > However, I've been unable to find any official explanation from Sun itself of > the particular reasons why it would not be sufficient if contributors > retained sole copyright ownership and simply licensed their contributions > under the CDDL. Has Sun provided any such explanation? > Sun hasn't specifically provided an OpenSolaris-centric explanation beyond what is available on the existing FAQs. However, the netbeans.org site contains a more comprehensive explanation of the reasoning behind assigning copyrights that might be helpful to you. It references the netbeans project and its history, but the information pertains to the OpenSolaris project as it does to the other open source projects that Sun sponsors. http://www.netbeans.org/about/legal/ca.html > > 4. Related to the previous item, > http://www.opensolaris.org/os/about/faq/licensing_faq/ says > "If I contribute code to the OpenSolaris source base, what will I be asked to > do as far as licensing is concerned? > Code contributed to the OpenSolaris source base must be made available under > the CDDL (or another open source license if based on another open source > project with a different license), and you must have submitted a contributor > agreement." > > Since sections 2 and 5 of the SCA effectively require that a contributor own > the copyright to his contribution (since otherwise, he wouldn't have the > right to assign joint ownership to Sun), and the SCA grants Sun joint > ownership, including the right to license the contribution as it sees fit, > isn't the requirement "Code contributed to the OpenSolaris source base must > be made available under the CDDL (or another open source license if based on > another open source project with a different license)" superfluous? Possibly. The FAQ is an attempt to answer questions that people thought would be asked a lot. And it is often read before people have read the entire SCA in detail. Repeated (or possibly superfluous) information seemed better than missing something. Hope this helps. Thanks. Bonnie > This message posted from opensolaris.org > _______________________________________________ > opensolaris-discuss mailing list > [email protected] _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list [email protected]
