On Thu, 2004-08-26 at 02:01, Dirk-Willem van Gulik wrote: > Right now we have no real policy with regard to Mirrors; essentially > anyone can run a mirror, tell us; we add and they get a logo if they > submit one as a small thank you. > > Legally it is entireyly up to the ASF to choose whether to list a mirror > or not. > > Recently Playboy.com submitted one. It was added as normal. [snip] > So let me put in my 5 cents into policy: > > and provided that > > -> Their goals do not inherently conflict with the ASF > and its bylaws and goals (see http://www.apache.org/foundation/ > for the base principle) > > -> The link/logo provided points to a page describing the > entity providing the download cannot be considered > overly offensive to the majority of our user community. > > Any reports that such is the case will be brough to the board swiftly > which will either resolve those, where needed with assistance from > [EMAIL PROTECTED] Board may choose to direct infrastructure@ to take the mirror > out of rotation while resolving it in the meantime but will not do so by > default. > > And provided that: > > -> The organisation or its logo is not legally banned in > a country in which a *member* has taken up residence **. > > in which case that Member can directly inform Board@; quote the relevant > local legislation and pending -this- investigation infratructure@ will > take the mirror out of rotation by default unless otherwise instructed. > > Appeals can be made to board and board only. > > Feel free to improve this strawman.
I am pretty much in favour of this proposal. Attempts to define what is and what is not morally acceptable to the huge range of Apache developers and Apache users is not likely to reach consensus this millenium :-). I think it's better to have a lax acceptance policy with the ability for people to object later than try to define up-front what is permissable. I would tweak Dirk's proposal slightly: <proposal> * Their goals do not conflict with the ASF etc.. (as per above) * The organisation and its logo must not be illegal in the home country of the organisation * The organisation must not be illegal according to the united nations Infrastructure may refer any mirror proposal to the board. The board may choose to direct infrastructure to remove any mirror, but should only do so if the organisation violates one of the thress points above, or a majority of the ASF members are opposed. They are not required to hold a vote; they may take action if it is their expectation that >50% would object (so that obviously offensive sitations can be dealt with promptly). Note that the Board is *not* expected to "approve" mirrors; mirrors are normally automatically accepted by infrastructure with the Board only handling objections. If any member of the Apache foundation finds the organisation or its logo offensive, the burden is on them to persuade the board that more than 50% of the members object to the situation. </proposal> The sentence about Infrastructure being able to refer proposals to the board takes the pressure off them for suspect applications. I propose "a majority of members" be the test rather than "a majority of users". The results should be similar, but evaluating member opinion is much easier. And in the end, I think that as the ASF is providing a free service it has the right to provide that service as it, not its users, sees best. With this policy, very few mirrors are likely to be declined. I think Playboy would be accepted. That means that Apache developers/users need to accept that there may be organisations they don't agree with. They should then choose a different mirror. There are definitely organisations I disapprove of, but that's the way the world is, and making the ASF a censorship bureau is not healthy. I think Dirk's proposal for "organisation illegal in any country with an Apache member" is likely to cause unnecessary trouble. As an example, mirrors hosted by the Taiwanese Government may not be allowed if the Taiwanese Government is an illegal organisation in China, despite the fact that >50% of apache members may well be happy with having such a mirror. Or if some country declares media company X illegal, because they object to a news article on the site, does that make it necessary to remove their mirror? One concern: I don't know the legality of a mirror site 'A' having links to other mirror sites representing organisations not legal in the host country for site 'A'. If this is a problem, then maybe Dirk's phrasing is necessary. Regards, Simon --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
