Dieter Maurer wrote:
Paul Everitt writes:
http://dev.zope.org/CVS/Contributor.pdf
The Committer Agreement does not seem to be even handed:
The committer transfers rights immediately and indefinitely
to Zope Corporation (the contributions become a gift to
Zope Corporation).
This is an inaccurate representation. Transfer means you lose the
rights and we gain the rights. Under joint ownership, both have rights.
I think this point was abundantly clear, so I'm surprised to see you
portray this as a gift.
The agreement states explicitly that no rights are transfered
to the committer.
Because they never lost any rights.
This is not a problem in itself. However
My intention to contribute would be to strengthen
the Open Source Movement. A statement that
the supported code base (Zope) will remain open source
and that committers will be able to use it (indefinitely)
under terms comparable to the current ZPL would
help to let the agreement to appear more balanced
I don't think it's really feasible to 100% guarantee things in the
future. Rather, the agreement states that current code, and any
contribution, will be available under the ZPL. Nothing can be
retracted. If someone comes along and gives us one trillion dollars to
stop releasing our work as open source, two things would happen:
1) First, we'd take the money. :^)
2) Second, all the existing code has to remain available under the ZPL.
We just wouldn't do _new_ things under a ZPL.
This is part of the safety of joint ownership. If you don't like what
we do in the future, you still have rights on your contribution.
The Commitrer Agreement is quite threadening:
A committer takes over a considerable risk (complete warranty
and indemnification with respect to intellectual rights infringement).
Yes. You can't make the risk disappear. Someone has to bear the risk.
It makes zero sense for ZC to bear the risk of what goes on in someone
else's brain. Even in the scenario of carelessness, a case will have to
be made regarding what you knew and when you knew it.
The risk is far higher than that of a (german) employee.
German employment law recognizes that
* all people make (sometimes) errors
* coping with isolated errors is far easier for
a larger community (the big employer) than
a single individual.
Therefore, it uses the term Fahrlässigkeit (carelessness).
An employee has to take all care to not make errors during
his work. If something bad happens due to slight
carelessness (leicht fahrlässig), then this is
a general risk which has to be taken by the employer.
If serious carelessness (grob fahrlässig) was the cause,
then the employee has to take the consequences for himself.
We should have something similar for the committer agreement
(not restricted to intellectual property rights!).
Maybe something like an insurance for slight carelessness
cases...
Unfortunately we'd have to be the insurer. :^(
Otherwise, commiting anything might easily ruin an individual.
Instead, you'd prefer that it ruin ZC? Or are you asserting that
somehow we could make it so that nobody would be held accountable?
Especially with the strange US Patent Laws (where almost
everything (such as presenting information in a popup window
or integrating a Web Frontend with a baking oven) can
be patented) and incredibly high damages amounts
(5 billion for a smoker who got cancer) assigned in US courts.
Unfortunately that's the jurisdiction in which we operate.
--Paul
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