date:20110616

- Original Message 

 From: plino pedl...@gmail.com
 Greg Stein wrote:
   how can you say that Apache
   removes rights from people's contributions? As a developer, you
  still  own your code. You can do whatever you like with it. Apache
  doesn't take  anything from You.
  
 
 Easy. Even a non-developer like myself can  see that :) 
 
 Compared to GPL (which is what Apache is asking developers  to give up on) it
 removes the right to be given back any improvement or fix  to the code you
 contributed.
 Since many people are doing this pro  bono, I think that it is fair that at
 least they retain the right to have  access to any fix or improvement to
 their code.

Even the GPL does not provide that right. If a company wanted it could take a 
GPL product, make whatever changes it wanted, and distribute it internally to 
itself without ever contributing back to the community as a whole.
Likewise, it could also distribute that same project to its customers, making 
the source available to them and them alone. The community will may never see 
any changes from them; yet that is perfectly valid under all Open Source 
licenses - even the GPL.

Nothing forces people to work with the community. No license can do that. So 
please do yourself a favor and put that notion - the myth - aside.

GPL, like all Open Source licenses, is about the end-user NOT the developer. 
Yes, there are a lot of developers that are also end-users, and developers are 
required to help make Open Source open source, but ultimately it is about 
providing a product to end-users with the same rights, etc that you had to 
start 
with.

Now, granted, the Apache License is more liberal in that it allows companies to 
not have to pass on those same rights; that is the difference - it doesn't 
require that they also make the source available to the end-user. So IBM is 
free 
to develop Symphony without having to provide source to the end-users. But 
there 
is nothing preventing them from having Symphony derived from LibreOffice under 
the LGPL and not providing any changes back to LibreOffice either; they only 
have to provide the source (in that case) to the end-users _upon request_ for 
up 
to 3 years for each version they release from the time they make the sale. 
(See the GPL license.)
 
 
 Under the Apache  license any company can take your code, fix it and say:
 Hey, this function  in the open source version doesn't work. I just spend a
 day fixing it  (instead of  months to write it from scratch). Why don't you
 buy mine  which works?

They can do that under the GPL too.

Ben


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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: [Libreoffice] Proposal to join Apache OpenOffice

2011-06-16 Thread Simon Phipps

Hi Allen,

While I am rather tired of this combative thread of discussion and think it is
way overdue for it to stop, you make some statements that can't be left
unchallenged.

On 16 Jun 2011, at 15:43, Allen Pulsifer wrote:

Allen Pulsifer wrote:

Hello Thorsten,

I do not agree with your conclusion that the Apache OpenOffice project is a
competing project. You simply chose to view it that way.

The main proposer of the project, Rob Weir of IBM, clearly stated his intent
for it to be a competing project - he even accused me of being potentially in
breach of anti-trust law on the Apache list[1], and has just re-asserted his
view on his blog[2]. So while many of us had hoped for a collaborative
approach, there are powerful forces who don't want that.

Here's what could have been: The world could have woken up one morning to an
announcement by the TdF congratulating the Apache Foundation for joining the
OpenOffice community

The TDF press release was in fact remarkably positive considering the
situation[3], welcomed the move and offered scope for discussion over
collaboration.

So my all means, continue forward with your decision that your personal
story is what really matters. That is your prerogative. Meanwhile, the
LibreOffice project will never be what it could have been. The opportunity
that has been lost will never come back again. That is the tragedy.

The tragedy is that people want to keep this divisive argument alive way beyond
its sell-by date. I think it's time to stop it, and either to focus on the
project that you want to work on or seek positively for ways to create
collaborations.

Cheers,

Simon

[1]
http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/incubator-general/201106.mbox/%3cof225fdf79.6bebc50b-on852578a7.00052da4-852578a7.00065...@lotus.com%3E
[2]
http://www.robweir.com/blog/2011/06/openoffice-libreoffice-and-the-scarcity-fallacy.html
[3]
http://blog.documentfoundation.org/2011/06/01/statement-about-oracles-move-to-donate-openoffice-org-assets-to-the-apache-foundation/
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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: [Libreoffice] Proposal to join Apache OpenOffice

2011-06-16 Thread Italo Vignoli


On 6/16/11 4:43 PM, Allen Pulsifer wrote:


So my all means, continue forward with your decision that your personal
story is what really matters.  That is your prerogative.  Meanwhile, the
LibreOffice project will never be what it could have been.  The opportunity
that has been lost will never come back again.  That is the tragedy.


It looks like you have different views from ours, and ours are as 
legitimate as yours (unless you belong to the same family of Rob Weir, 
who assumes to be the only person with legitimate views about TDF and 
LibreOffice).


Opportunities are symmetrical, while this opportunity looks asymmetrical 
(we have the opportunity of reuniting the community under the ASF 
umbrella, while ASF has not the opportunity of reuniting the community 
inside TDF mixing bowl).


I understand that you are very happy with the ASF project. If you are 
happy we are happy for you. Users will decide on their own: they don't 
need your suggestions.


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[tdf-discuss] Re: [Libreoffice] Proposal to join Apache OpenOffice

2011-06-16 Thread plino


BRM wrote:
 
 Even the GPL does not provide that right. If a company wanted it could
 take a 
 GPL product, make whatever changes it wanted, and distribute it internally
 to 
 itself without ever contributing back to the community as a whole.
 Likewise, it could also distribute that same project to its customers,
 making 
 the source available to them and them alone. The community will may never
 see 
 any changes from them; yet that is perfectly valid under all Open Source 
 licenses - even the GPL.
 
 Nothing forces people to work with the community. No license can do that.
 So 
 please do yourself a favor and put that notion - the myth - aside.
 

So basically GPL is worth nothing because no one can force anybody to
contribute back?

Is that an argument in favor of convincing developers to use the Apache
license (because they aren't getting anything back anyway) or to simply stop
contributing to Open Source projects?

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RE: [tdf-discuss] Re: [Libreoffice] Proposal to join Apache OpenOffice

2011-06-16 Thread Allen Pulsifer

 Allen Pulsifer wrote:
 I do not agree with your conclusion that the Apache OpenOffice project 
 is a competing project.  You simply chose to view it that way.

 Simon Phipps wrote:
 The main proposer of the project, Rob Weir of IBM, clearly stated his
intent for it to be
 a competing project - he even accused me of being potentially in breach of
anti-trust
 law on the Apache list[1], and has just re-asserted his view on his
blog[2]. So while many
 of us had hoped for a collaborative approach, there are powerful forces
who don't want that.

Hello Simon,

The donation of the OpenOffice code, trademark and domain were made to the
Apache Foundation, not to IBM or to Rob Weir.  Rob Weir is only one of many
people who are now members of the project at Apache.  As the board members
of the Apache Foundation made it clear, those members will have the primary
responsibility for determining the direction of the project, not IBM or Rob
Weir.  I happen to be one of those persons, and as a member, I have the same
voice as Rob Weir.  That means the same voice in determining what goes on
the openoffice.org website, how the openoffice.org trademark is used, and
whether the project direction is collaborative or competitive.  As an
experienced person in the open source world, I would think you know by now
that it is a lot easier to influence a project when have a seat at the table
and are working from the inside rather of the outside.  You could have also
been one of those persons with a seat at the table, and together, we would
have had twice the voice as Rob Weir.  Every other member of this community
could have also joined, and that would have been an overwhelming voice.
Again, a lost opportunity.

Allen



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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: [Libreoffice] Proposal to join Apache OpenOffice

2011-06-16 Thread Simon Phipps


On 16 Jun 2011, at 16:58, Allen Pulsifer wrote:

 You could have also
 been one of those persons with a seat at the table, and together, we would
 have had twice the voice as Rob Weir.

Excuse me? What are all the contributions I am making on that list? Chopped 
liver?

S.


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RE: [tdf-discuss] Re: [Libreoffice] Proposal to join Apache OpenOffice

2011-06-16 Thread Allen Pulsifer

 Allen Pulsifer wrote:
 As an experienced person in the open source world, I would think you know
by now that
 it is a lot easier to influence a project when have a seat at the table
and are working from
 the inside rather of the outside.  You could have also been one of those
persons with a seat
 at the table, and together, we would have had twice the voice as Rob Weir.

 Simon Phipps replied:
 Excuse me? What are all the contributions I am making on that list?
Chopped liver?

Pretty much, yes.  As a person who chose not to have a seat at the table,
you are serving up chopped liver for the people at the table to taste and
decide whether they want to eat it.  That's a fair analogy, I think, if it's
the one you want to use.

Allen



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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: [Libreoffice] Proposal to join Apache OpenOffice

2011-06-16 Thread Simon Phipps


On 16 Jun 2011, at 17:31, Allen Pulsifer wrote:

 Allen Pulsifer wrote:
 As an experienced person in the open source world, I would think you know
 by now that
 it is a lot easier to influence a project when have a seat at the table
 and are working from
 the inside rather of the outside.  You could have also been one of those
 persons with a seat
 at the table, and together, we would have had twice the voice as Rob Weir.
 
 Simon Phipps replied:
 Excuse me? What are all the contributions I am making on that list?
 Chopped liver?
 
 Pretty much, yes.  As a person who chose not to have a seat at the table,
 you are serving up chopped liver for the people at the table to taste and
 decide whether they want to eat it.  That's a fair analogy, I think, if it's
 the one you want to use.

Given I've showed up in both conversations at Apache and made actual tangible 
contributions of at least the same scale as yours, I honestly have no idea what 
you are getting at, Allen. 

Thanks,

S.


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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: [Libreoffice] Proposal to join Apache OpenOffice

2011-06-16 Thread Simos Xenitellis

On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 5:43 PM, Allen Pulsifer pulsi...@openoffice.org wrote:
 Allen Pulsifer wrote:
 If most or almost all of the LO contributors joined the Apache
 OpenOffice project, if only to lend moral support and help heal the
 rift, that would only be good for LO and the TdF.

 Thorsten Behrens wrote:
 Allen, how can you, with a straight face, ask people here to come over to
 a different project,
 that likely noone here is really happy with, that was setup as a fait
 acompli, marketed as the
 natural upstream, removes rights from people's contributions, and is
 effectively competing
 (by how the proposal reads)?

 ...snip...

 Best Regards,

 Allen


If that is your best attempt for reconciliation, you are doing it wrong.

Simos

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: [Libreoffice] Proposal to join Apache OpenOffice

2011-06-16 Thread Robert Derman


Augustine Souza wrote:

On 6/15/11, Allen Pulsifer pulsi...@openoffice.org wrote:
...
  

End users do not care about
who's right, who's wrong, who's been slighted, who is more pure, etc.  They
just care about products and technologies that are going to meet their
needs.



Painting quite a poor picture of end users? Are they really like that?
Or do we say so to support our argument?
  
As one of those end users I would have to say that that is probably 
about right.  Unless something interferes with the quality or 
availability of the software or the support available for it, we are 
probably not going to care.  Now the situation with OOo and Sun, and 
later Oracle was that comments, complaints and requests by end users 
seemed to basically be ignored, that does bother end users!  This 
situation is notably better with TDF running things. 



I could be wrong about this, but I don't think I am, OOo being primarily 
the responsibility of a large for profit corporation it was treated like 
a proprietary software package as far as development and support was 
concerned.  Comparing Microsoft Internet Explorer with Mozilla Firefox 
shows that an independent not-for-profit foundation can actually produce 
a better software Product than a huge for-profit corporation.  So I am 
confidently hoping that LO under TDF will actually fare better than OO 
under Sun and Oracle. 


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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: [Libreoffice] Proposal to join Apache OpenOffice

- Original Message 

 From: plino pedl...@gmail.com
 BRM wrote:
  
  Even the GPL does not provide that right. If a  company wanted it could
  take a 
  GPL product, make whatever  changes it wanted, and distribute it internally
  to 
  itself  without ever contributing back to the community as a whole.
  Likewise, it  could also distribute that same project to its customers,
  making 
  the source available to them and them alone. The community will may  never
  see 
  any changes from them; yet that is perfectly valid  under all Open Source 
  licenses - even the GPL.
  
  Nothing  forces people to work with the community. No license can do that.
  So 
  please do yourself a favor and put that notion - the myth -  aside.
  
 
 So basically GPL is worth nothing because no one can  force anybody to
 contribute back?
 
 Is that an argument in favor of  convincing developers to use the Apache
 license (because they aren't getting  anything back anyway) or to simply stop
 contributing to Open Source  projects?

No. I am merely pointing out the fallacy in what we being said.

To many people assume that GPL means contribute back to the community when it 
does not.

So to argue forcing people to contribute back under any FLOSS license is 100% 
wrong, when the topic should be about the rights of the end-users - GPL 
guarantees them while Apache and other permissive licenses do not necessarily 
do 
so - in most all cases I am aware of they do not at all.

IOW, if you are going to argue differences in the license and reasons to go one 
way or the other, at least get your facts straight about the license and its 
implications. Then you can have a proper debate on the merits of which one to 
go 
with.

BTW, I typically lean towards using the GPL/LGPL myself. However, that won't 
stop me from contributing to BSD/Apache licensed projects either - or even 
projects governed by ICLA/CLA/etc (so long as they don't inhibit my abilities 
to 
work on other projects under other licenses). Each license has its use; and 
each 
community has their favored license. TDF/LO favors LGPL/GPL; Apache favors the 
more permissive Apache License. So far as I am concerned, with certain 
exceptions (e.g. MS Public License) as long as the license is approved by the 
Open Source Initiative as being a proper Open Source license - requirements 
being derived from the early Debian Social Contract - then what does it matter 
as long as the users can make an informed decision? - that is, if they don't 
like IBM Symphony they can make the decision to use Apache's OOo or any derived 
product, or even LO (since you guys have at least expressed the concept that 
you 
are truly an OOo fork and don't want to be seen as a derived product from 
OOo/ApacheOOo). That is just me - and I know many on this list will disagree, 
that is their right.

Ben

P.S. On the other hand, I get really pissed at companies like March Hare 
Software, Ltd. that have taken open source - even GPL licensed - software and 
essentially made them proprietary. It is very hard to move off of CVSNT to a 
proper CVS install, or even to another system (e.g. SVN, git) because of the 
changes they have made and the non-availability of the source. Yet, they 
support 
projects like TortoiseCVS so that users can continue to use CVSNT. 
(http://www.evscm.org/modules/Downloads/)


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RE: [tdf-discuss] Re: [Libreoffice] Proposal to join Apache OpenOffice

2011-06-16 Thread Pieter E. Zanstra

As an interested user I see a lot of noise passing by on this topic. I must
say I am totally unimpressed. What counts for me is reality, not dreaming in
the cloud. I was used to getting no response from Microsoft on my bug
reports. I did join in a bug report in OOo about table autoformats not being
saved properly. I did approach Sun and Oracle directly about this silly bug
that has been sitting untouched since 2008 in the OpenOffice bug repository.
I did not get any answers from Sun/Oracle either.

I resubmitted the original bug report to the new TDF bug repository. There,
within a quarter of a year, it has been evaluated and elevated to the
Easyhack status. I would not be surprised if that problem would be solved
by the end of this year. They have already done quite a pile of cleaning
code and bug fixing. My confidence as a user is with them. The indians have
to prove as yet. That is what matters at the end of the day. 
P


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Re: [tdf-discuss] Enhancement Request: Comment Ranges

2011-06-16 Thread M Henri Day

2011/6/16 Charles Jenkins cejperso...@tec-usa.com

 Cristoph wrote:

   What I'm currently unsure about - how to proceed. Although I'm not
  that convinced about voting, maybe it should be added to:
  http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Vote_for_Enhancement


 I did it! The wiki finally let me edit the page!

 Now that we can find Bug 38244 under the section for voting on
 Enhancements to Writer, I'd like to ask everyone with an interest in
 this issue to please sign up and add your vote.

 If you use Track Changes to work with an editor, you probably need this
 feature! :-)


Charles, I'm happy to hear that you were able to edit the page, but less
happy that, despite signing in, I couldn't find any way to register my vote.
A step-by-step for the intellectually challenged ?...

Henri

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[steering-discuss] MC-meeting minutes 2011-06-16

2011-06-16 Thread André Schnabel


Hi,

meeting minutes are at the wiki:
 
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/TDF/Membership_Committee_Meetings#Minutes_2011-06-16

(Cor, Fridrich - please edit the wiki, if I forgot something important.)

I'll inform the approved members (and rejected applicants) within the 
next few hours and update the website after that.


regards,

André

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: [Libreoffice] Proposal to join Apache OpenOffice

On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 04:27, plino pedl...@gmail.com wrote:

 Greg Stein wrote:

  how can you say that Apache
 removes rights from people's contributions? As a developer, you
 still own your code. You can do whatever you like with it. Apache
 doesn't take anything from You.


 Easy. Even a non-developer like myself can see that :)

 Compared to GPL (which is what Apache is asking developers to give up on) it
 removes the right to be given back any improvement or fix to the code you
 contributed.

As Ben has explained later in this thread, you never had that right.
Ergo, Apache has not removed any rights from You.

This is why I think the statement removes rights from people's
contributions is wrong, or there is some other right that I'm unaware
of.

...

Cheers,
-g

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: [Libreoffice] Proposal to join Apache OpenOffice

On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 13:40, Pieter E. Zanstra pie...@zanstra.eu wrote:
 As an interested user I see a lot of noise passing by on this topic. I must
 say I am totally unimpressed. What counts for me is reality, not dreaming in
 the cloud. I was used to getting no response from Microsoft on my bug
 reports. I did join in a bug report in OOo about table autoformats not being
 saved properly. I did approach Sun and Oracle directly about this silly bug
 that has been sitting untouched since 2008 in the OpenOffice bug repository.
 I did not get any answers from Sun/Oracle either.

 I resubmitted the original bug report to the new TDF bug repository. There,
 within a quarter of a year, it has been evaluated and elevated to the
 Easyhack status. I would not be surprised if that problem would be solved
 by the end of this year. They have already done quite a pile of cleaning
 code and bug fixing. My confidence as a user is with them. The indians have
 to prove as yet. That is what matters at the end of the day.

Absolutely that is what matters. Whether the caretakers place *you* at
the forefront. Big faceless corporations generally don't, while
smaller communities usually do.

I believe the (recent) discussion stemmed from whether end-users care
about the *license*. They mostly want a great product and a responsive
caretaker. That's it. I can guarantee you that my mother, father,
brother, sister, and the rest of my extended family would give me a
blank stare if I told them they needed to use Free Software rather
than proprietary. Crickets would echo in the room.

There *are* end-users who want Free Software. Many of you care
strongly about it, and seek out Free Software. Granted. But when you
look at the tens of millions (hundreds?) of OOo and LO users, they
simply don't care.

Building and providing LibreOffice is a fabulous thing for people who
really care about Free Software. LO has an important place in our
software ecosystem. I just don't think projecting that philosophy onto
the typical end-user makes sense, however.

Cheers,
-g

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Re: [tdf-discuss] OCA vs. ICLA: two names - one thing?

On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 10:41, Andre Schnabel andre.schna...@gmx.net wrote:
...
 Maybe Apache and TDF members might have a differnt view on the effects,
 as Apache members are more used to US copyright law, while TDF members
 are more used to the European way.

That is a very important point, Andre. Thanks for pointing it out. I
tend to forget it, too :-P

...

Cheers,
-g

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[tdf-discuss] Re: [Libreoffice] Proposal to join Apache OpenOffice

2011-06-16 Thread plino


Greg Stein wrote:
 
 As Ben has explained later in this thread, you never had that right.
 Ergo, Apache has not removed any rights from You.
 
 This is why I think the statement removes rights from people's
 contributions is wrong, or there is some other right that I'm unaware
 of.
 

GPL does say that if you make a derivative work and distribute it to someone
else, you must provide that person with the source code under the terms of
the GPL so that they may modify and redistribute it under the terms of the
GPL as well.

The Apache license says you don't have to distribute under the same license
and therefore you don't have to provide the source code.

In the context of a public free Office Suite isn't that the same? If under
GPL you MUST release the source as GPL, isn't that in practical terms the
same as releasing the modifications you made???

Doesn't this mean that changing the license to Apache removes the right to
have access to the modified source code if a company so chooses?

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Re: [tdf-discuss] OCA vs. ICLA: two names - one thing?

On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 07:17, Bernhard Dippold
bernh...@familie-dippold.at wrote:
 Hi Greg, Dennis, Friedrich, all

 thanks for pointing to this very topic.

 So if I understand it right, the difference is a legal one with probably
 minor consequences in code usage:

 While with ICLA the contributer keeps the copyright on his own (and thus
 needs personal legal assistance or an additional contract in case of
 copyright infringement claims) the OCA / JCA allows the entity sharing
 the copyright to behave as copyright owner in legal conflicts.

I'm not familiar with the legal mechanics of OCA and JCA.

For Apache's ICLA and process... yes. The short answer is that a
third-party would not be able to sue *you* based on software they get
from the Apache Software Foundation. The Foundation is set up to
establish a trail of responsibility between the committers and the
Foundation itself. We use the word oversight when establishing that
linkage.

The committer places code into the repository under the oversight of
the Project Management Committee (PMC). Thus, the PMC has instructed
the committer to do this, rather than the committer acting as a free
agent.

The PMC's actions are reviewed by the Board of the Foundation. Thus,
the Board is providing oversight and accountability to the PMC. The
PMC is operating at the direction and wishes of the Board.

The Board represents the Foundation itself, and uses this chain of
oversight to establish responsibility.

If a third party attempted to sue You for (say) some violation of
their copyright, then the Foundation can step in and say we are
responsible. Bernhard was acting according to our wishes. sue us, not
him. The theory is that a judge will then remove you from the case,
and put Apache in there.

This is why we have the ICLA and why we structure the Foundation in a
specific way. The Foundation exists to create a legal umbrella for
all of its 3000 committers. Those committers should remain safe from
third parties.

People simply committing into a repository do not necessarily have
this safety. There is no chain of oversight that allows an individual
to escape responsibility. This problem exists across the entire FLOSS
landscape. The saving grace is that we simply don't see these types of
lawsuits. So the Apache legal umbrella is nice, but the chances of
needing it are vanishingly small.

 Both allow the entity to release the code under any license (or single
 case authorization) they want to.

Yes.

 I don't want to discuss the possibility of positive or negative impacts
 of single sided license changes in comparison to updateable plus licenses.

GPLv2 or newer leaves you with the hope that the FSF will continue
to look after *your* interests with your code. Linus Torvalds didn't
believe the FSF would do the right thing for the Linux community, so
he switched all the headers to GPLv2. In retrospect, that was a
smart thing to do because he very much disagrees with some aspects of
the GPLv3.

But yes: entities such as Oracle and Apache, having full licensing
rights, could apply licenses that the community disagrees with.
Personally, I trust Apache do it right :-)

 But is there a difference in licensing and code usage by third parties
 between OCA and ICLA (except the fact, that they can use Apache licensed
 code without being forced to negotiate with and probably pay fees to Oracle
 if they don't want to contribute back)?

Nope. In both cases, third parties are getting code from Oracle or
Apache, under whatever license that entity provides. How the code
arrived (via OCA or ICLA) is immaterial. Both entities could provide
the license under ALv2, and you'd have the same rights to that code.

Cheers,
-g

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[tdf-discuss] Copyleft vs. more permissive (was: Proposal to join Apache OpenOffice)

2011-06-16 Thread Friedrich Strohmaier

Hi BRM, *,

BRM schrieb:
 From: plino pedl...@gmail.com

[..]

 Even the GPL does not provide that right. If a company wanted it could
 take a GPL product, make whatever changes it wanted, and distribute
 it internally to itself without ever contributing back to the
 community as a whole.

True. Anyone using it for his own can do so.

 Likewise, it could also distribute that same project to its customers,
 making the source available to them and them alone.

True, they even can demand a fee for it.

 The community will may never see any changes from them; yet that is
 perfectly valid under all Open Source licenses - even the GPL.

Not true. If one of those customers goes ahead and publishes the source
code, that company can't forbid. This is covered by the GPL. That means:
If IBM put copyleft code (LGPL/GPL) in symphony then I could by a copy,
require the source code and publish it.

 Nothing forces people to work with the community. No license can do
 that.

right, but Your example lacks the point I told.

 So please do yourself a favor and put that notion - the myth -
 aside.

50% myth remaining ;o)).

[..]

 they only have to provide the source (in that case) to the end-users
 _upon request_ for up to 3 years for each version they release from
 the time they make the sale. (See the GPL license.)

Which is enough time to get it, even if donations have to be collected
;o))

 Under the Apache  license any company can take your code, fix it and
 say: Hey, this function  in the open source version doesn't work. I
 just spend a day fixing it  (instead of  months to write it from
 scratch). Why don't you buy mine  which works?

 They can do that under the GPL too.

But we can get it back then. Thats a notable difference ;o))


Gruß/regards
-- 
Friedrich
Libreoffice-Box http://libreofficebox.org/
LibreOffice and more on CD/DVD images


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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: [Libreoffice] Proposal to join Apache OpenOffice

Ben explained much of this already, but let's see if I can add some more:

On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 14:46, plino pedl...@gmail.com wrote:

 Greg Stein wrote:

 As Ben has explained later in this thread, you never had that right.
 Ergo, Apache has not removed any rights from You.

 This is why I think the statement removes rights from people's
 contributions is wrong, or there is some other right that I'm unaware
 of.


 GPL does say that if you make a derivative work and distribute it to someone
 else, you must provide that person with the source code under the terms of
 the GPL so that they may modify and redistribute it under the terms of the
 GPL as well.

The key thing being that person. That person is most likely not You,
the developer who is contributing to the software. Thus, You won't get
those changes unless that person decides to pass them back to you.

So you don't necessarily have a right to the code. You are relying
on the goodwill of that person to help you out. Of course, they
might not even know who you are. They might not care. They might not
ever ask for the source code.

 The Apache license says you don't have to distribute under the same license
 and therefore you don't have to provide the source code.

Correct.

 In the context of a public free Office Suite isn't that the same? If under
 GPL you MUST release the source as GPL, isn't that in practical terms the
 same as releasing the modifications you made???

Nope. Again, because I only need to release it to the people that I
gave a binary to. That is not the same as the community making the
software.

Also, recognize that I might make a TON of changes. Create a massively
superior product. And then use it *internally*. I might not ever
distribute my work outside of the company.

Or... hey... I might put a web interface on the front of that Office
Suite, and run a web-based version of it. That isn't releasing the
software to anybody, so all of that awesome work that I did does not
have to be released. (see the AGPL if you want to solve this scenario)

 Doesn't this mean that changing the license to Apache removes the right to
 have access to the modified source code if a company so chooses?

As a developer, you never had those rights to begin with.

Apache is not removing any rights from You. People who use Apache code
(developers, admins, end-users, hobbyists, companies, etc) have more
rights: they can decide whether to return changes or not. But they do
not have to operate under Free Software principles. That
understandably bugs people. But as a developer, Apache is not reducing
your rights (the original phrase that I took issue with).

Cheers,
-g

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: [Libreoffice] Proposal to join Apache OpenOffice

2011-06-16 Thread todd rme

On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 9:05 PM, Greg Stein gst...@gmail.com wrote:
 Ben explained much of this already, but let's see if I can add some more:

 On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 14:46, plino pedl...@gmail.com wrote:

 In the context of a public free Office Suite isn't that the same? If under
 GPL you MUST release the source as GPL, isn't that in practical terms the
 same as releasing the modifications you made???

 Nope. Again, because I only need to release it to the people that I
 gave a binary to. That is not the same as the community making the
 software.

I think you missed the public free Office Suite bit.  In that case
the people you gave the binary to is anyone who wants it, which
would include the developers if they want to use the source code.  So
in this case, in practice, having the code as GPL means you must give
the code back to the developers, or rather you must make the code
available for the developers to get for themselves.  This is the
situation software suites like IBM's would have fallen under.

-Todd

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: [Libreoffice] Proposal to join Apache OpenOffice

2011-06-16 Thread Robert Derman


Greg Stein wrote:

On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 13:40, Pieter E. Zanstra pie...@zanstra.eu wrote:
  

As an interested user I see a lot of noise passing by on this topic. I must
say I am totally unimpressed. What counts for me is reality, not dreaming in
the cloud. I was used to getting no response from Microsoft on my bug
reports. I did join in a bug report in OOo about table autoformats not being
saved properly. I did approach Sun and Oracle directly about this silly bug
that has been sitting untouched since 2008 in the OpenOffice bug repository.
I did not get any answers from Sun/Oracle either.

I resubmitted the original bug report to the new TDF bug repository. There,
within a quarter of a year, it has been evaluated and elevated to the
Easyhack status. I would not be surprised if that problem would be solved
by the end of this year. They have already done quite a pile of cleaning
code and bug fixing. My confidence as a user is with them. The indians have
to prove as yet. That is what matters at the end of the day.



Absolutely that is what matters. Whether the caretakers place *you* at
the forefront. Big faceless corporations generally don't, while
smaller communities usually do.

I believe the (recent) discussion stemmed from whether end-users care
about the *license*. They mostly want a great product and a responsive
caretaker. That's it. I can guarantee you that my mother, father,
brother, sister, and the rest of my extended family would give me a
blank stare if I told them they needed to use Free Software rather
than proprietary. Crickets would echo in the room.

There *are* end-users who want Free Software. Many of you care
strongly about it, and seek out Free Software. Granted. But when you
look at the tens of millions (hundreds?) of OOo and LO users, they
simply don't care.

Building and providing LibreOffice is a fabulous thing for people who
really care about Free Software. LO has an important place in our
software ecosystem. I just don't think projecting that philosophy onto
the typical end-user makes sense, however.

Cheers,
-g
  
This is exactly how I feel about this, and why I think that TDF forking 
the OOo code is the best thing that could have happened.  I suspect that 
in the first 1 to three months not much code development happened, 
naturally it takes time for things to get started.  So it would be my 
best guess that there has been about six months of software development 
under TDF.  That being the case, it seems like the LO software package 
has been evolving and improving at from 4 to 8 times the pace that it 
was under Sun/Oracle.




I have been on the OOo discuss list since 2001 perhaps even 2000, its 
hard to remember, anyway, from all the various comments and complaints 
over the years it seems like the real show-stoppers got fixed and the 
nuisance problems just got ignored for the most part.  Now it seems like 
with an all volunteer group rather than developers being assigned chores 
by corporate management, all the bugs are being addressed in a more 
impartial way.  Not having done any programming since college and BASIC, 
I don't know how to read C++ source code, but I have read here that 
there has been more work at cleaning up the source code, removing 
remarked out lines of code, and such during the last 6 months than 
during the previous 6 years. 



An example of M$ work, Vista was well over a year late in being 
released, and even then it was a horrible mess!  Over the years one 
theme on the OOo Discuss List was a sort of competition between OOo and 
M$ Office.  I think the only way to judge the relative merits of two 
such software suites is by relative user satisfaction.  By that metric 
it always seemed that OOo was about 2 to 3 years behind M$ Office, 
judging by the talk on the list.  Now if M$ continues at their current 
rate of progress, and if LO does likewise, then sometime during the next 
year LO would pass M$ Office in user satisfaction.  What could be better 
than that!?


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RE: [tdf-discuss] OCA vs. ICLA: two names - one thing?

Well, it is not the OCA or ICLA that is passed onward.  

So the question is, I think, is there any difference in how the OCA allowed 
Oracle to license the contributions and how the ICLA allows Apache to license 
contributions?  There is one obvious difference: Apache can't enter into a 
private license nor create a sublicense that is incompatible with the license 
they are given in the ICLA.  Oracle has the power, under the OCA, to create 
whatever licenses it wanted and even make further transfers of copyright.

In practice, the LGPL license from Oracle and the ALv2 license from Apache both 
permit sublicensing, but the ALv2 is more permissive in lacking the reciprocity 
requirement.  As Thorsten has observed, it means he gives up more exclusive 
rights if he can't count on reciprocity and wants to require it.  

I don't agree that both allow the receiving entity to issue the contribution 
under any license they want to.  Definitely for Oracle but I don't think so for 
Apache, even though the ICLA does not identify the license Apache will use.  
(You have to trust that the foundation rules for Apache prevent the obvious 
transgressions and they must be aware what some dramatic change of direction 
would do with regard to their community base.)

IANAL and I don't know whether sublicensing of ALV2 licensed code as LGPL falls 
under the notion of sublicensing.  But I suspect the requirement that the 
ALv2 license/notice be attached is not something a sublicense can work around.  
That is, a sublicense can't be *more* permissive than the license that is being 
sublicensed.  I could find no precedent for that in examples of sublicensing 
(admittedly, using Web sources of questionable virtue).

 - Dennis

-Original Message-
From: Bernhard Dippold [mailto:bernh...@familie-dippold.at] 
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2011 04:18
To: discuss@documentfoundation.org
Subject: Re: [tdf-discuss] OCA vs. ICLA: two names - one thing?

Hi Greg, Dennis, Friedrich, all

thanks for pointing to this very topic.

So if I understand it right, the difference is a legal one with probably
minor consequences in code usage:

While with ICLA the contributer keeps the copyright on his own (and thus
needs personal legal assistance or an additional contract in case of
copyright infringement claims) the OCA / JCA allows the entity sharing
the copyright to behave as copyright owner in legal conflicts.

Both allow the entity to release the code under any license (or single
case authorization) they want to.

[ ... ]


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RE: [tdf-discuss] Re: [Libreoffice] Proposal to join Apache OpenOffice

Why is that a poor picture?

I am confident that some users choose Open/LibreOffice distributions for 
ideological reasons.

I also think many adopt software because they have a need that it satisfies in 
their use of it in creating and interchanging documents and the FOSS assurance 
has little meaning for them.  It simply is not relevant in their world.

What's poor about that?

Is it more important that LO be a political weapon than it be useful to people 
who have work to do?

 - Dennis

-Original Message-
From: Augustine Souza [mailto:aesouza2...@gmail.com] 
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2011 07:18
To: discuss@documentfoundation.org
Subject: Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: [Libreoffice] Proposal to join Apache OpenOffice

On 6/15/11, Allen Pulsifer pulsi...@openoffice.org wrote:
...
 End users do not care about
 who's right, who's wrong, who's been slighted, who is more pure, etc.  They
 just care about products and technologies that are going to meet their
 needs.

Painting quite a poor picture of end users? Are they really like that?
Or do we say so to support our argument?

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RE: [tdf-discuss] Re: [Libreoffice] Proposal to join Apache OpenOffice

I am not happy with Allen's characterization of Simon's participation.

I suspect the difference is that Allen put himself on the list of initial 
committers and is now on the podling PPMC at Apache.  Simon did not choose to 
put himself on that list.

That's Simon's business.  

Simon has been a vocal, active participant in the run-up to the Apache 
Incubator vote to accept the Oracle contribution and on the public lists that 
are now established for the Apache podling.

I, for one, welcome any contributions that Simon cares to make, and that Allen 
will be making.  

I should point out that it is a waste of time to become an initial committer 
and member of the podling PPMC with the goal of canceling Rob Weir's (or anyone 
else's) vote, because there is rarely any voting, *especially* on technical 
matters.  I am learning as a newcomer there that Apache is a *serious* 
inclusive meritocracy and it is better to look at it as there being no one who 
has a privileged seat at the table.

 - Dennis

-Original Message-
From: Simon Phipps [mailto:si...@webmink.com] 
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2011 09:37
To: discuss@documentfoundation.org
Subject: Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: [Libreoffice] Proposal to join Apache OpenOffice


On 16 Jun 2011, at 17:31, Allen Pulsifer wrote:

 Allen Pulsifer wrote:
 As an experienced person in the open source world, I would think you know
 by now that
 it is a lot easier to influence a project when have a seat at the table
 and are working from
 the inside rather of the outside.  You could have also been one of those
 persons with a seat
 at the table, and together, we would have had twice the voice as Rob Weir.
 
 Simon Phipps replied:
 Excuse me? What are all the contributions I am making on that list?
 Chopped liver?
 
 Pretty much, yes.  As a person who chose not to have a seat at the table,
 you are serving up chopped liver for the people at the table to taste and
 decide whether they want to eat it.  That's a fair analogy, I think, if it's
 the one you want to use.

Given I've showed up in both conversations at Apache and made actual tangible 
contributions of at least the same scale as yours, I honestly have no idea what 
you are getting at, Allen. 

Thanks,

S.


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[tdf-discuss] OpenOffice.org Product Roadmap: made by whom ? was: Re: [discuss] remove of binfilter module

2011-06-16 Thread Martin Hollmichel

Hi Sam,
 Do you have a concrete proposal?
yes, I have.

First, I do not have any problems with the Apache style of decision
making, lazy consensus sounds perfectly reasonable to me. I like that
style. This fits perfectly to the meritocracy principle.

My understanding is, that this principle is based on
* contributing individuals
* organizations/institutions contributing developers and/or money for
the infrastructure/governance, these organizations contribute because
they have derived products or other business around the regarding software.
So users are represented in this model by own work power or indirectly
by companies.
This principle has been proven to work quite well for many open source
projects.

I think this principle may get enhanced by enabling a non profit
organization to have their own resources on a project (This might fit
into the Apache philosophy considering this organization as an
contributing institution). I think this is necessary because there is
already a lot of business happening around OpenOffice, but most of these
businesses are just to small or have not the right expertise to execute
on the meritocracy principle.
So what the OOo project missed most was to have a path to get product
feature or tasks done (or just 4th level support) with the help of money
offered.

So my proposal is continue project decisions the Apache Style but also
to find a framework to make product decisions in a manner that also the
concerns of Users, local communities, QA, business partners, etc. get
honored. This framework also should enable to collect money so that
development (committer) resources can be found to get the issues
addressed in an equitable process.

We already have thousands of feature requests and enhancements in the
queue, we are putting a new bunch of requirements on top of it through
the current transition to Apache, I think we should seek the power of
_all_ OOo communities, users and businesses to achieve significant
growth to make OOo a better and successful product. And I did not even
included wishes like ODF Viewers, mobile and Cloud services around OOo.

My offer is to develop (with all concerned parties) a new charter for
all the groups mentioned above (as a successor of the Community Council
Charter) and enable the project to have own development resources. The
non profit organization Team OpenOffice.org e.V. played in the past just
the role of being the cash box of the CC in a quite defensive way
(http://download.openoffice.org/contribute.html, will you find the path
to donate ??), now Team OOo is preparing to offer a link between
business, communities, users and developers to enable growth on the new
futile ground we are now moving on.

Martin





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RE: [tdf-discuss] Re: [Libreoffice] Proposal to join Apache OpenOffice

+1

-Original Message-
From: Greg Stein [mailto:gst...@gmail.com] 
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2011 11:37
To: discuss@documentfoundation.org
Subject: Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: [Libreoffice] Proposal to join Apache OpenOffice

On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 13:40, Pieter E. Zanstra pie...@zanstra.eu wrote:
 As an interested user I see a lot of noise passing by on this topic. I must
 say I am totally unimpressed. What counts for me is reality, not dreaming in
 the cloud. I was used to getting no response from Microsoft on my bug
 reports. I did join in a bug report in OOo about table autoformats not being
 saved properly. I did approach Sun and Oracle directly about this silly bug
 that has been sitting untouched since 2008 in the OpenOffice bug repository.
 I did not get any answers from Sun/Oracle either.

 I resubmitted the original bug report to the new TDF bug repository. There,
 within a quarter of a year, it has been evaluated and elevated to the
 Easyhack status. I would not be surprised if that problem would be solved
 by the end of this year. They have already done quite a pile of cleaning
 code and bug fixing. My confidence as a user is with them. The indians have
 to prove as yet. That is what matters at the end of the day.

Absolutely that is what matters. Whether the caretakers place *you* at
the forefront. Big faceless corporations generally don't, while
smaller communities usually do.

I believe the (recent) discussion stemmed from whether end-users care
about the *license*. They mostly want a great product and a responsive
caretaker. That's it. I can guarantee you that my mother, father,
brother, sister, and the rest of my extended family would give me a
blank stare if I told them they needed to use Free Software rather
than proprietary. Crickets would echo in the room.

There *are* end-users who want Free Software. Many of you care
strongly about it, and seek out Free Software. Granted. But when you
look at the tens of millions (hundreds?) of OOo and LO users, they
simply don't care.

Building and providing LibreOffice is a fabulous thing for people who
really care about Free Software. LO has an important place in our
software ecosystem. I just don't think projecting that philosophy onto
the typical end-user makes sense, however.

Cheers,
-g

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RE: [tdf-discuss] Re: [Libreoffice] Proposal to join Apache OpenOffice

I want to clear up one thing (I hope):

   Doesn't this mean that changing the license to Apache removes the right to
   have access to the modified source code if a company so chooses?

  As a developer, you never had those rights to begin with.

  Apache is not removing any rights from You. People who use Apache code
(developers, admins, end-users, hobbyists, companies, etc) have more
rights: they can decide whether to return changes or not. But they do
not have to operate under Free Software principles. That
understandably bugs people. But as a developer, Apache is not reducing
your rights (the original phrase that I took issue with).

If I am the copyright holder of my code, I can issue it with a license that 
requires anyone who modifies my source code to provide me with the changes to 
my code that they make.  

There have been licenses like that, some of which were satisfied by patches 
being provided and not the whole source of the downstream use of the source 
code, possibly embedded in a proprietary software product.

Not sure how that sort of thing is enforceable, but as a copyright holder I 
think that comes under the exclusive rights that are mine, to be licensed as I 
see fit, at least in the US.

 - Dennis

PS: It is the case that neither the GPL nor APLv2 have such a compulsory 
condition and it would be interesting to see what the FSF would say in the 
event someone sublicensed a GPL derivative in that manner.  I suppose there 
could be a similar sublicensing of an APLv2 derivative, but not sure the Apache 
Foundation would have anything to say about it at all so long as the conditions 
of ALv2 were otherwise satisfied.



-Original Message-
From: Greg Stein [mailto:gst...@gmail.com] 
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2011 12:05
To: discuss@documentfoundation.org
Subject: Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: [Libreoffice] Proposal to join Apache OpenOffice

Ben explained much of this already, but let's see if I can add some more:

On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 14:46, plino pedl...@gmail.com wrote:

 Greg Stein wrote:

 As Ben has explained later in this thread, you never had that right.
 Ergo, Apache has not removed any rights from You.

 This is why I think the statement removes rights from people's
 contributions is wrong, or there is some other right that I'm unaware
 of.


 GPL does say that if you make a derivative work and distribute it to someone
 else, you must provide that person with the source code under the terms of
 the GPL so that they may modify and redistribute it under the terms of the
 GPL as well.

The key thing being that person. That person is most likely not You,
the developer who is contributing to the software. Thus, You won't get
those changes unless that person decides to pass them back to you.

So you don't necessarily have a right to the code. You are relying
on the goodwill of that person to help you out. Of course, they
might not even know who you are. They might not care. They might not
ever ask for the source code.

 The Apache license says you don't have to distribute under the same license
 and therefore you don't have to provide the source code.

Correct.

 In the context of a public free Office Suite isn't that the same? If under
 GPL you MUST release the source as GPL, isn't that in practical terms the
 same as releasing the modifications you made???

Nope. Again, because I only need to release it to the people that I
gave a binary to. That is not the same as the community making the
software.

Also, recognize that I might make a TON of changes. Create a massively
superior product. And then use it *internally*. I might not ever
distribute my work outside of the company.

Or... hey... I might put a web interface on the front of that Office
Suite, and run a web-based version of it. That isn't releasing the
software to anybody, so all of that awesome work that I did does not
have to be released. (see the AGPL if you want to solve this scenario)

 Doesn't this mean that changing the license to Apache removes the right to
 have access to the modified source code if a company so chooses?

As a developer, you never had those rights to begin with.

Apache is not removing any rights from You. People who use Apache code
(developers, admins, end-users, hobbyists, companies, etc) have more
rights: they can decide whether to return changes or not. But they do
not have to operate under Free Software principles. That
understandably bugs people. But as a developer, Apache is not reducing
your rights (the original phrase that I took issue with).

Cheers,
-g

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RE: [tdf-discuss] OCA vs. ICLA: two names - one thing?

+1

-Original Message-
From: Greg Stein [mailto:gst...@gmail.com] 
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2011 11:58
To: discuss@documentfoundation.org
Subject: Re: [tdf-discuss] OCA vs. ICLA: two names - one thing?

On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 07:17, Bernhard Dippold
bernh...@familie-dippold.at wrote:
 Hi Greg, Dennis, Friedrich, all

 thanks for pointing to this very topic.

 So if I understand it right, the difference is a legal one with probably
 minor consequences in code usage:

 While with ICLA the contributer keeps the copyright on his own (and thus
 needs personal legal assistance or an additional contract in case of
 copyright infringement claims) the OCA / JCA allows the entity sharing
 the copyright to behave as copyright owner in legal conflicts.

I'm not familiar with the legal mechanics of OCA and JCA.

For Apache's ICLA and process... yes. The short answer is that a
third-party would not be able to sue *you* based on software they get
from the Apache Software Foundation. The Foundation is set up to
establish a trail of responsibility between the committers and the
Foundation itself. We use the word oversight when establishing that
linkage.

The committer places code into the repository under the oversight of
the Project Management Committee (PMC). Thus, the PMC has instructed
the committer to do this, rather than the committer acting as a free
agent.

The PMC's actions are reviewed by the Board of the Foundation. Thus,
the Board is providing oversight and accountability to the PMC. The
PMC is operating at the direction and wishes of the Board.

The Board represents the Foundation itself, and uses this chain of
oversight to establish responsibility.

If a third party attempted to sue You for (say) some violation of
their copyright, then the Foundation can step in and say we are
responsible. Bernhard was acting according to our wishes. sue us, not
him. The theory is that a judge will then remove you from the case,
and put Apache in there.

This is why we have the ICLA and why we structure the Foundation in a
specific way. The Foundation exists to create a legal umbrella for
all of its 3000 committers. Those committers should remain safe from
third parties.

People simply committing into a repository do not necessarily have
this safety. There is no chain of oversight that allows an individual
to escape responsibility. This problem exists across the entire FLOSS
landscape. The saving grace is that we simply don't see these types of
lawsuits. So the Apache legal umbrella is nice, but the chances of
needing it are vanishingly small.

 Both allow the entity to release the code under any license (or single
 case authorization) they want to.

Yes.

 I don't want to discuss the possibility of positive or negative impacts
 of single sided license changes in comparison to updateable plus licenses.

GPLv2 or newer leaves you with the hope that the FSF will continue
to look after *your* interests with your code. Linus Torvalds didn't
believe the FSF would do the right thing for the Linux community, so
he switched all the headers to GPLv2. In retrospect, that was a
smart thing to do because he very much disagrees with some aspects of
the GPLv3.

But yes: entities such as Oracle and Apache, having full licensing
rights, could apply licenses that the community disagrees with.
Personally, I trust Apache do it right :-)

 But is there a difference in licensing and code usage by third parties
 between OCA and ICLA (except the fact, that they can use Apache licensed
 code without being forced to negotiate with and probably pay fees to Oracle
 if they don't want to contribute back)?

Nope. In both cases, third parties are getting code from Oracle or
Apache, under whatever license that entity provides. How the code
arrived (via OCA or ICLA) is immaterial. Both entities could provide
the license under ALv2, and you'd have the same rights to that code.

Cheers,
-g

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: [Libreoffice] Proposal to join Apache OpenOffice

- Original Message 

 From: todd rme toddrme2...@gmail.com
 To: discuss@documentfoundation.org
 Sent: Thu, June 16, 2011 3:13:15 PM
 Subject: Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: [Libreoffice] Proposal to join Apache 
OpenOffice

 On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 9:05 PM, Greg Stein gst...@gmail.com wrote:
  Ben  explained much of this already, but let's see if I can add some  more:

  On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 14:46, plino pedl...@gmail.com  wrote:

  In the context of a public free Office Suite  isn't that the same? If under
  GPL you MUST release the source as  GPL, isn't that in practical terms the
  same as releasing the  modifications you made???

  Nope. Again, because I only need to  release it to the people that I
  gave a binary to. That is not the same  as the community making the
  software.

 I think you missed the  public free Office Suite bit.  In that case
 the people you gave the  binary to is anyone who wants it, which
 would include the developers if  they want to use the source code.  So
 in this case, in practice, having  the code as GPL means you must give
 the code back to the developers, or  rather you must make the code
 available for the developers to get for  themselves.  This is the
 situation software suites like IBM's would have  fallen under.

Wrong. OOo, TDF/LO, etc may be making a public release. IBM, for example, may 
not.

They are only releasing to people who _pay them_ for the product. _ONLY_ those 
people (the ones they specifically distributed the product to) are required to 
be able to receive it - not necessarily the developer they drew the code from.

Someone could take TDF/LO and make changes and do the same thing - only release 
to their paying customers.
And they only have to give the source to one of those paying customers - not 
anyone that comes along and asks for it.
Granted, if _one_ of those paying customers asked for the source they would 
then 
have the rights to pass it back to TDF/LO, but you cannot rely on that 
happening. Their paying customers are guaranteed that right by the GPL;  but 
that GPL grants _you_ as the developer nothing other than that.

So as Greg said, who has the rights (per the GPL) to receive the source is not 
necessarily the same as the community. The only people that have rights to 
receiving the source are the ones that the product was specifically distributed 
to. If you are are not someone that received the product distributed by them, 
then you have no rights to receive the source - plain  simple.

Ben

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Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: [Libreoffice] Proposal to join Apache OpenOffice

2011-06-16 Thread Simos Xenitellis

On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 12:49 AM, BRM bm_witn...@yahoo.com wrote:

 So as Greg said, who has the rights (per the GPL) to receive the source is not
 necessarily the same as the community. The only people that have rights to
 receiving the source are the ones that the product was specifically 
 distributed
 to. If you are are not someone that received the product distributed by them,
 then you have no rights to receive the source - plain  simple.

As I said earlier, you do not need to be a copyright holder to request
the source code
of a copyleft software.

Simos

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RE: [tdf-discuss] Re: [Libreoffice] Proposal to join Apache OpenOffice

2011-06-16 Thread Andrea Pescetti

Dennis E. Hamilton wrote:
 If I am the copyright holder of my code, I can issue it with a license
 that requires anyone who modifies my source code to provide me with
 the changes to my code that they make.  ...
 PS: It is the case that neither the GPL nor APLv2 have such a
 compulsory condition and it would be interesting to see what the FSF
 would say in the event someone sublicensed a GPL derivative in that
 manner.

Adding to what Greg already wrote (i.e., you need that a distribution of
the software happens in order to enforce this), this requirement is
considered compatible with Free Software licenses. See
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html (search for previous
developer or read the last line about revision 1.11).

But it is not possible to attach it to existing LGPL3/GPL3 code since it
would violate section 10 of GPL3:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#OrigBSD

Regards,
  Andrea.


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OFF TOPIC about GPL enforcement (Was: Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: [Libreoffice] Proposal to join Apache OpenOffice)

2011-06-16 Thread Simos Xenitellis

On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 1:03 AM, Greg Stein gst...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 17:54, Simos Xenitellis
 simos.li...@googlemail.com wrote:
...
 The key thing being that person. That person is most likely not You,
 the developer who is contributing to the software. Thus, You won't get
 those changes unless that person decides to pass them back to you.

 So you don't necessarily have a right to the code. You are relying
 on the goodwill of that person to help you out. Of course, they
 might not even know who you are. They might not care. They might not
 ever ask for the source code.


 It's a common misconception. If a TV uses Linux (most LCD/LED TV use Linux),
 you do not need to show evidence you bought one in order to ask for
 the Linux source code.

 See the GPLv2 (per Linux kernel) license text,
 http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.txt

 “Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years,
 to give **any third party**, for a charge no more than your
 cost of physically performing source distribution,”

 That written offer goes to the recipient (your statement comes from
 3(b), which is dependent upon the primary part of (3), which talks
 about distributions to a recipient). The recipient does not need to
 transfer or pass that offer to third parties.


Here is the full sentence, omitting some details for clarity:

a. You [i.e. manufacturer, etc] may copy and distribute the Program,
b. in object code or executable form
c. provided that you also
d. accompany it with a written offer
e. to give **any** third party
f. a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code

 Again, you're relying on the goodwill of the recipient to get changes 
 returned.


Anyone can get a copy of the source code for copyleft software.

Tell me which LCD/LED TV  you have (brand, model), and I'll get for
you the source code (of the copyleft) software.

Simos

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RE: [tdf-discuss] Re: [Libreoffice] Proposal to join Apache OpenOffice

I'm sorry. I have IBM Lotus Symphony 3.0 with fixpack 2 installed on my 
computer and I didn't pay anyone for it.

It is free to download.  Registration required.  That's it.  

If I want support, that is different.  Not much different than with Sun Star 
Office and Oracle Office, actually.

True, they have not offered me the source code.  But still, free as in free 
beer was enough for my purposes.  

 - Dennis

-Original Message-
From: BRM [mailto:bm_witn...@yahoo.com] 
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2011 14:50
To: discuss@documentfoundation.org
Subject: Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: [Libreoffice] Proposal to join Apache OpenOffice

[ ... ]
 
Wrong. OOo, TDF/LO, etc may be making a public release. IBM, for example, may 
not.

They are only releasing to people who _pay them_ for the product. _ONLY_ those 
people (the ones they specifically distributed the product to) are required to 
be able to receive it - not necessarily the developer they drew the code from.

[ ... ]


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Re: OFF TOPIC about GPL enforcement (Was: Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: [Libreoffice] Proposal to join Apache OpenOffice)