Re: [tdf-discuss] Copyright Assignments & the Document Foundation
2010/11/7 Michael Meeks : > Hi Roberto, Hi Michael, > On Sat, 2010-11-06 at 14:27 +0100, Roberto Resoli wrote: >> The crucial point is not JCA/CLA ecc. but what we expect from the Foundation >> and what we want the governance of the Foundation should be in the future. > > Well, these are interesting topics of course; but somehow they have > been intertwined in people's minds. > >> It's not a black box, we can form it in the way we want, but it should have a >> motivation for existing,other than being a mere repository of code. I >> don't feel the need for a foundation that does nothing really useful. > > I agree having a useful foundation is better than a non-useful one :-) > I'm convinced though that usefulness is an orthogonal problem to the > need (or otherwise) for copyright ownership. I agree that copyright ownership is not a necessary condition to have an useful foundation, but in my opinion these are not orthogonal items at all; the foundation can be much more effective in its action, because owning copyright permits much more effective action. For example: if someone steals me the code I contributed, it would be very difficult to excercise my rights, particularly if the stealing subject is a big Company; the situation is even much more difficult if the copyright is dispersed. In "why assign" page form fsf[1] I read: "... And despite the broad right of distribution conveyed by the GPL, enforcement of copyright is generally not possible for distributors: only the copyright holder or someone having assignment of the copyright can enforce the license . If there are multiple authors of a copyrighted work, successful enforcement depends on having the cooperation of all authors. " >> It's not warm, it's not cosy, but in my opinion could be more useful. >> It could represent me in a much more effective way. A legal entity can >> receive >> money, can hire lawyers, can conduct marketing campaigns, > > A foundation that owns no code can represent you, inasmuch as it > commands your trust and loyalty. Similarly there is no need to own > anything in order to receive money, hire lawyers, conduct marketing > campaigns: all of which can be good things of course. What I said about "being an useful foundation" i referred to the fact that, after a month, TDF still doesn't have a legal status, and I don't see any notice of an action in this direction (please point me to related information if I'm wrong). Without a legal status, i think TDF cannot do almost anything effective, including receiving donations and possibly talking to governement entities. This is also a prerequisite for eventually (even as an option, as someone is suggesting here) receive Copyright Assignments. >> I think LibO is too important to let things going in a random way. >> Random meaning that possibly some big contributors will dominate >> the project, being the only having the adequate "contribution power" > > The choice to not aggregate ownership is a deliberate one, and is by no > means a random choice, it follows the most outstandingly successful Free > Software projects of our time. I understand that this is a deliberate action of course, and please, don't think that I want coinvince you or any other that my thoughts about CA are better; my intention is only to present some aspects that may have been shadowed by the need to attract contributions. >> As I told other times, giving power to FSF or Mozilla instead of let >> TDF taking it, is not the best thing to do. > > Nonsense; the 'TDF' still has the power to re-license the code all it > likes - vested in the consent of its members. Mmm; my worries are very practical; as I said, Mozilla relicencing took 4 years and a half; what time would take to relicense about ten times that code? > The fact that we also > trust the FSF and the Mozilla guys to do the right thing in future is > purely an added bonus. Yes, I meant only that others (i trust them too, but this is not the point) and not the foundation we are establishing *now*, will have that power. It sounds a bit strange to me. > Of course - that power is vested in the people that really wrote the > code, documentation, translation etc. which is IMHO where it belongs. The power is there in any case, but dispersed and not enforceable, without a strong (copyright owning) Foundation. My last words about this, I definitely like more coding that talking about that. Long live to LibO! (under a strong TDF, I hope) bye, rob > ATB, > > Michael. [1] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.html -- Unsubscribe instructions: Email to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Posting guidelines: http://netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html Archive: http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived ***
Re: [tdf-discuss] Copyright Assignments & the Document Foundation
2010/11/5, Caolán McNamara : > Wasn't subscribed to this list earlier, so I'll just hijack the first > mail from the copyright thread to reply to to state my own opinion on > copyright assignments. > > So, I'm not a huge fan of them No one (no authors or developer, at least) can be. > and believe they put contributors off. > None of the various projects I've contributed to outside of > OpenOffice.org had one, and had I been an individual developer, as > opposed to an employee whose company approved a block assignment thing > on our behalf, I almost certainly wouldn't have bothered to go through > the process personally on OOos behalf either. They definitely put me > off. Ok, you had (eventually) to assign to a private Company in the past, now the potential entity is a Foundation, representing all contributors. It's not the same thing. The crucial point is not JCA/CLA ecc. but what we expect from the Foundation and what we want the governance of the Foundation should be in the future. It's not a black box, we can form it in the way we want, but it should have a motivation for existing,other than being a mere repository of code. I don't feel the need for a foundation that does nothing really useful. > IMO, they take a lot of the fun out of it, and erect a barrier on two > fronts, the first is the practical hassle of signing it, faxing it, > sometimes even buying stamps and posting it, clicking through whatever. > Ugh, its so often not worth the pain. The other barrier is the > difference it makes to the perception of the body that wants it. Logging > a patch, implementing features, etc to help out fellow developers and > users "just like me" is one thing, but when presented with a copyright > assignment then you're pushed out into a different world where there's > some legal entity wants to own or co-own your work, and that's not a > warm and cosy place. It's not warm, it's not cosy, but in my opinion could be more useful. It could represent me in a much more effective way. A legal entity can receive money, can hire lawyers, can conduct marketing campaigns, > Who exactly are they, what do they want to do with it, why do they need > it. What are their motivations and can I trust them ?. If enough people > of one company or another get onto the board will they sell out and > relicense everything to some third party. The governance and the rules of a strong foundation are up to us, we can build as we want, because WE will build the Foundation. > Do I have to read all their > bylaws to see if that's not going to happen. Do I trust them. > > As far as I know, GNOME, KDE, Linux kernel and the GIMP along with > masses of the little projects that makes everything work, typically get > along fine without copyright assignment, though some have quirks like > optional copyright assignment. Apache, FSF on the other side. The kernel is simply too big because one single entity could hope to dominate it, and for historical reasons is not even thinkable to govern it in a different manner. I think LibO is too important to let things going in a random way. Random meaning that possibly some big contributors will dominate the project, being the only having the adequate "contribution power" > There is the advantage of being able to move up to a newer version of > the LGPL of course, but large chunks of the code is locked in as LGPLv3 > anyway, so using a newer version of the LGPL is only possible if Oracle > relicenses their existing contribution under that, the current policy of > placing new work under a GPLv3+/LGPLv3+/MPLv1.1 should cover situations > like that if they arise. As I told other times, giving power to FSF or Mozilla instead of let TDF taking it, is not the best thing to do. bye, rob > C. > > > -- > Unsubscribe instructions: Email to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org > Posting guidelines: http://netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html > Archive: http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/ > *** All posts to this list are publicly archived *** > > -- Unsubscribe instructions: Email to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Posting guidelines: http://netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html Archive: http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived ***
Re: [tdf-discuss] Copyright Assignments & the Document Foundation
2010/11/3 Michael Meeks : > > On Tue, 2010-11-02 at 17:28 +0100, Roberto Resoli wrote: >> Copyright Assignment is nor bad nor good, it's a compromise > > I do not see assignment in -any- way as a compromise; but as an > un-necessary extreme. like mine, it's an opinion, of course ;-) >> i am still waiting to see any reply also to Andrea's proposals >> in another thread [1] > > Oh - I guess I should reply there. thanks >> I agree with Andrea, and I think that all this JCA stuff need a more >> pragmatic approach > > Honestly; the amount of doom mongering I guess that with this term you mean "profecy of disaster", something that in italian we could name "being a Cassandra". I didn't wanted to be a Cassandra; it only seems to me that JCA/CLA and similar issues should be discussed openly, with fresh mind, evaluating pro and con. > in this thread is staggering. > Suddenly we somehow 'discovered' that all FLOSS licenses are > un-enforceable, jurisdictionless, that no-one has really contributed > anything, in any binding way to any eclectically owned FLOSS project[1], > and that only mad people would ship that software :-) No, the issue here regards a really complex project, more than 12 millions lines of code, I guess, that needs a transition from the "umbrella" of Oracle to another model; clearly it's important to conduct the transition in a way that makes feasible to manage the project in the future. > If the rational conclusion of these arguments is that the Linux Kernel, > Mozilla, SAMBA, GNOME, KDE, and by extension -all- Linux distributions > are fundamentally unsafe to ship - then we have a huge and un-fixable > problem; but one that is by far beyond the scope of LibreOffice to fix. I agree; nevertheless, i think we should decide what kind of foundation TDF would be, and if the foundation could effectively join the interests all the subjects interested in LibO (or other projects in the future). Dealing with patent claims is one of things that i think TDF should take care of, without being necessarily "doom mongering". > In particular OpenOffice already has this problem, since it includes > big chunks of Mozilla - which has some form of mild certification of > authenticity - but this only extends to the person doing the committing, > not the code they commit [ from others ] ;-) ie. it is eclectically > owned, and there is no paperwork, or click-through before contributing. > > So at this point, there are two options: > > * throw up arms in dismay, conclude nothing is 'safe', and > wander around desparately trying to aggregate stronger > rights to the entire codebase in various organisations > [ which IMHO aggregates problems with it ]. > Or: > * follow the rest of the world including eg. IBM (who are not > short of lawyers) who already ship eg. Mozilla, SAMBA and > Linux without any of these apparently indispensible > assignments > > ;-) This dicotomy in my opinion is not reflecting the real situation, nor I said that assignments are indispensable. It's a subject should be discussed with all the players. By the way, TDF is still not a player, because it still lacks a legal status bye, rob > HTH, > > Michael. > > [1] - eclectically owned projects are, by far, the vast majority of Free > Software projects. > -- > michael.me...@novell.com <><, Pseudo Engineer, itinerant idiot -- Unsubscribe instructions: Email to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Posting guidelines: http://netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html Archive: http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived ***
Re: [tdf-discuss] Copyright Assignments & the Document Foundation
2010/11/3 Andre Schnabel : > Hi, > > > > Von: Gianluca Turconi > Gesendet: 03.11.10 08:40 Uhr > > Il 02/11/2010 20.57, Charles Marcus ha scritto: > It might sound complicated, > but once it is automated, it would 'just > work'. Of course, the system that > holds this information should be > backed up religiously...;) This system may > work, indeed. It would cover several important national laws in which digital > agreements are equalized to written ones. > > Ianal - but for German (and most EU countries) law, digital agreements are > only > equivalent to written ones, if there is a trusted electronic signature in > place. > > So a just "click thru" would not really establish something that is legally > binding. The same in Italy, i think. The framework on digital signatures was established in EU in 1999: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:31999L0093:en:HTML and i think is currently adopted in almost all UE countries national laws. bye, rob > > regards, > > André -- Unsubscribe instructions: Email to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Posting guidelines: http://netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html Archive: http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived ***
Re: [tdf-discuss] Copyright Assignments & the Document Foundation
2010/11/1 Michael Meeks : > Hi Andrea, ... >> Now, without copyright assignment/agreement (granted by the LibreOffice >> developers to the Document Foundation), the Document Foundation will be >> in the awkward situation I described: it manages a product (LibreOffice) >> but cannot represent the LibreOffice developers since it doesn't own the >> code. > > Sure - it can recommend, advise, and encourage people in directions; it > can lead the project via the brand, it can encourage collaboration and > resolve conflicts - but sure; it is not a monolithic entity that can > dictate ownership of the code. Nor it could help contributors in any way, if they are sued because of their contribution. Copyright Assignment is nor bad nor good, it's a compromise; i am still waiting to see any reply also to Andrea's proposals in another thread [1] . I agree with Andrea, and I think that all this JCA stuff need a more pragmatic approach, when the TDF will become a stable entity with a legal peronality the big players can deal with. bye, rob [1] http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/msg00533.html -- Unsubscribe instructions: Email to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Posting guidelines: http://netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html Archive: http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived ***
Re: [tdf-discuss] Copyright Assignments & the Document Foundation
2010/11/1 Giuseppe Castagno : > Charles-H. Schulz wrote: >> >> Hello BRM, >> >> >> Le Thu, 28 Oct 2010 07:12:59 -0700 (PDT), >> BRM a écrit : >> >>> - Original Message >>> From: Charles-H. Schulz 4) the notion that we cannot change license because we don't have copyright assignment needs to be put to rest once and for all today. There is a very simple explanation with respect to this > > [big snip] > >>> Perhaps the way around that is to require those contributing TDF to >>> use the "or later" language; though some may not want to. >>> >>> Even without copyright assignment the only thing standing in the way >>> of changing the license - whether to LGPLv4 or even GPLv3 or whatever >>> else - is getting the permission of _all_ the copyright holders. >> >> Good objection indeed! Actually, the problem is partly solved, since we >> now license our software under "LGPL v3 or later". At least it would be >> solved for the LGPL side of things. But my real answer here though, is >> perhaps more provocative: if Oracle changes the licence, do we really >> care? for the 3.3 we stick to the codebase of OOo, but I'm unsure we'll >> stick that much to it in further releases. In fact, I can already >> point out, looking at our development activity, that we're not taking >> the path of being "OpenOffice.org, just recompiled by the community". I >> think as the time will go by, we will diverge more and more and end up >> becoming quite different software. >>> >>> >From what I understand this is already impossible to do under Linux due to >>> >>> deaths of at least one contributor. >> >> Yes, and in this case a rewrite is needed. > > this can work in practice for small addendum, but what about bigger one? > > That may take some time. > > I implemented PDF/A-1a in OOo around 3 years ago > (http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/news_in_pdfexport), rewriting it > from scratch would not be a quick matter. > > And, my personal opinion only, years back I signed the then Sun (J)CA, I > will sign a TDF one or similar without problem. > > May be the CA should be on a voluntary basis. > > Just my 0,02 as a dev, and not a lawyer. I can only add an example: Mozilla relicensing took "four and a half years, 445 contributors and 28522 files": http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/gerv/archives/2006/03/relicensing_complete.html And i think that OOo/LibO is one order magnitude (10 times) than Mozilla in terms of lines of code. bye, rob > > beppec56 -- Unsubscribe instructions: Email to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Posting guidelines: http://netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html Archive: http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived ***
Re: [tdf-discuss] Copyright Assignments & the Document Foundation
2010/11/1 Harri Pitkänen : > Hi! Hi all, > On Monday 01 November 2010, Andre Schnabel wrote: >> If we want an answer on this (would developers not have joined if there >> was a CA) we would need to ask them. This should indeed be asked >> at the dev-list. I'd bet, that at least some of them would state >> that they not would have joined. > > I can at least say that I would most likely not have contributed if a CA had > been required. "Most likely" means that I would have read the assignment and > looked at the organization behind it before making the decision. If they were > both solid and there were strong enough justification for it, I would sign. In > this case neither the organization nor the assignment text exist yet so I > cannot do that. The same holds for me. CA is possibly a "necessary evil", it doesn't make much sense asking an unbiased opinion to developers, they don't like it in general, of course. TDF has to have a very clear position about it, nevertheless, for the very good reasons Andrea already pointed out. TDF is going to be in a much weaker position if it does not asks a JCA or CLA or something like that to his contributors. Weaker regarding his position towards commercial companies, weaker in his ability to provide support to his contributors against patent claims or other litigations. As a developer, i think that protection from patent claims provided by L/GPL3 in not sufficient, I would like if TDF could be in charge in such cases, not me. > I am not a major contributor so this may not weight much in the final > decision. But one rather large problem that I see with the assignments is that > if they are required also from developers of external libraries then the > assignment would also be needed from developers that may not have any interest > in LibreOffice but may still have some common development interest with us. > > Let's take Word import/export filters for example. They could (at least in > theory, I saw the idea somewhere in the Wiki) be split to a separate library > and shared with KOffice or someone who wanted to write a free competitor for > Google Docs. People developing such libraries might react badly if they would > be required to sign a CA just to get a patch in to support a product that they > have no personal interest in. One of the strengths of free software is that we > can work together on such things even if our own goals were totally different, > perhaps even competing. > > We could solve this by excluding all external libraries, including the > hypothetical Word import/export library, from the CA requirement. But would > such arrangement lose most of the benefits of CA that covered everything? My > (perhaps incorrect) understanding of the situation is that many proprietary > derivatives of OOo were shipped without providing any source code under the > LGPL. > If the import/export library was LGPL only then no-one could do such > thing anymore. Not that I understand why avoiding LGPL this way is important > for anyone, but probably the companies have their reasons. These are very good points. At the moment, anyway, all new files are (or should be) contributed in a Mozilla-like three-license fashion[1]. Comparing it with the Mozilla boilerplate [2] from which it is presumably derived, it lacks the final part, but i think it's clear that anyone is free to use the contribution under any one of GPLV3+, LGPV3+ or MPL license. > I'm not totally against the CA. I have signed the JCA for Sun and contributed > some small patches to OOo in a few cases where that was needed to solve some > issue that affected only Finnish users or something similar. But after reading > this discussion and thinking about it I do feel that there is more to win by > not replicating that process for LibreOffice. My feelings are slightly on the other side, for the reasons i told at start, but let's see how this interesting thread will evolve... bye, rob > Harri [1] http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/LibreOffice/LicenseHeader [2] http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/boilerplate-1.1/mpl-tri-license-c -- Unsubscribe instructions: Email to discuss+h...@documentfoundation.org Posting guidelines: http://netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html Archive: http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived ***
