On Oct 17, 2006, at 4:30 PM, Daniel Kulp wrote:
> I don't have a binding vote, but my thought is Harmony has the
> same "issue" as Felix: namely they haven't done a release or provided
> even a "test release" to the IPMC so the IPMC can be sure the podling
> knows the proper way to do a release and understands and can
> correct all
> the issues such as proper apache licensing, etc... Basically, make
> sure the podling can get all their "Apache Legal Ducks in a Row."
This is a good point, and thanks for raising it. I'll now try and
take away your concern, and everyone elses, on this point.
As one of harmony's mentors, I'm confident that harmony has more
legal ducks than most apache projects, and has them more precisely in
row that most, and that this is only the case because of a community
with outstanding "legal awareness".
Harmony started with precisely 0 committers, and 6 months of legal
talks. Its processes and policies are, IMHO, more "secure" and
"safe" (paranoid!) than those of any other project at apache. They
were like that before we seriously started adding committters. Each
committer was added only after a vote on the PPMC. Each person on the
PPMC was only added after a vote by the PPMC. Each big outside
contribution was internally vetted and discussed on the development
list extensively, and then explicitly voted in by the PPMC, with the
PPMC demonstrating time and time again to be fully aware of all the
legal gotcha's.
I haven't bothered counting, but I'm confident that the harmony PPMC
as well as its development community have done over 30 "important"
votes on issues with potential legal implications (at harmony, almost
anything besides a simple patch has potential legal implications, but
accepting 500,000 lines of source code and merging it into the
repository certainly does).
Harmony even had an issue at some point (which I'm sure the incubator
PMC can remember, since it was kept up-to-date on private@) where an
external contribution we received (by an individual not associated
with any of the "big companies" that have salaried people
contributing to harmony) could possibly be a licensing infringement
on an existing third party open source project, and managed to
resolve that in what I would argue is very much the best way possible
(not only resolving any potential licensing mess, but building what
seem to be becoming healthy and permanent ties with the third party
open source project). So harmony even has a legal duck in its row
that most apache projects have never ever had to deal with.
I'm expecting harmony will have to deal with more issues like this
before (and after) it issues a 1.0 final release, and I'm also
expecting harmony to be able to deal with it.
> Looking at the latest snapshot downloaded from the website, there
> definitely are some things missing. (mainly, stuff missing from the
> META-INF of all the jars)
LICENSE and NOTICE files should go into all files that one would
consider distributing seperately. Harmony is not going to be
distributed in pieces, with individual jars ending up at ibiblio,
harmony is going to be distributed as a JDK (and as a HDK, but that's
a detail). Just like, for example, the Sun JDK, the license file
therefore doesn't end up inside the JDK-provided jars, but at the top
level of the JDK distribution.
> Anyway, I think Harmony should first go through the process of
> preparing a
> release and get it OK'd by the IPMC. There is a LOT a podling can
> learn
> while going through that process. Since Felix was "asked" to
> create a
> sample release, I would expect Harmony should do the same.
This is normally true. As a mentor (being well aware of the "do a
release before graduation" incubator guideline, even if
undocumented), I made the assertion that the harmony community
wouldn't learn anything significant from it. Since harmony also has
other concerns when it comes to release management (like purposefully
staying under the radar and not generating much press noise), its
actually much healthier for harmony not to go through the release
motions right now.
When harmony later on, as a TLP, will have to do a proper release,
rest assured that such an effort will be subject to a lot more
scrutiny than is typical for apache projects, by virtue of having to
pass a TCK, having to dance around known patents, etc.
cheers,
LSD
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