Re: Copyright resolution

[Gary Thomas <gary at mlbassoc dot com>]

On Thu, 2003-03-20 at 21:25, Jonathan Larmour wrote:
> The time has come to bring this to a conclusion. The beta is now out, and 
> we want this to be resolved for 2.0 final.
> 
> I gave Red Hat repeated reminders and finally a deadline of last week to 
> give a response to the mail I had sent (which you've all seen). But there 
> was no answer.
> 
> At FOSDEM I talked to Martin Michlmayer about SPI and copyright 
> assignments and stuff, and from that I found out that despite my very 
> explicit statements in almost all my mails, it is almost certain they 
> unfortunately didn't quite understand our proposal with licensing 
> opt-outs. Martin's view from knowing the individuals on the SPI board (he 
> doesn't speak for SPI so this *isn't* a definitive SPI response though) is 
> that many of them would be deeply against such license opt-outs.
> 
> Add to that that SPI are only now even _considering_ how to deal with 
> copyright assignments (although admittedly we were only proposing before 
> them delegating the paperwork to us), and that their approach in general, 
> while well-intentioned, is unfortunately.... er... amateurish, I don't 
> believe any chance of license deals between Red Hat and SPI is plausible.
> 
> So as I see it, and from what y'all have already indicated preferences 
> for, there are essentially two conclusions:
> 
> a) Create our own "eCos Foundation" whether not-for-profit or otherwise, 
> and possibly then try to do a deal with Red Hat.;

I'm in favor of this, but it must be seen as vendor neutral, i.e. not
favoring any commercial participant (eCosCentric or MLB or Mind or ...)

> or
> b) Drop the copyright assignment requirement for patches entirely.
> 

I see this as a last resort because it basically can turn things into
a free-for-all.

 <snip>

> I would like to hear from every maintainer in this thread. Unless we get 
> complete consensus, I would suggest thrashing things out here a little, 
> and then setting up a phone conference to reach the conclusion.
> 
> I won't say what my favoured personal preference is until tomorrow as I 
> want to prevent this post appearing biased :-P.
> 

By "tomorrow", I assume that you mean Friday, March 21?

I'm ready to discuss this at length whenever y'all are.  I note that 
it's been 15 hours since Jonathan sent this, and AFAICT this is the
only response so far.

> What I would say is that if Red Hat presented the option of assigning all 
> their copyright to a _single_ not-for-profit entity on a plate, I'd go for 
> that. But that's safe to say since it isn't an option :-) :-(.

Yup, pretty safe.

-- 
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