David (Jones), Tim, Chris,
Sorry, I know this thread isn't about legal issues with OFBiz. But
Chris often has a way of
spotting some oft-missed angle, and I'm concerned about a particular
angle now. Though I'm also
often lost in his long complex explanations, please forgive me if I
feel scared/concerned about
some issues mentioned. Need just a bit of advice here.
I'm looking at some excertps from Chris' "findlaw" URL. Please note
those words between **.
"When the copyright... *provided that the use does not destroy the
value of the
work* ..."
I understand that the ASF license is like the MIT license, so the
open sourced codes can be packed
into a commercial package (much like the LGPL?).
I'm really lost. Anyway, if it's a non-issue, just let me know?
Thanks.
Don't need to brief me about open source and GPL/LGPL, I already know
all that.
Jonathon
Chris Howe wrote:
--- Tim Ruppert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
<snip>
I reviewed patches for Anil and Ashish - that is correct. There's
no
fancy partnership here - nor is there any any legal concern, but
that's truly not what this discussion should be about.
<snip>
You're absolutely correct that there isn't a _fancy partnership
present. The partnership created is the same mundane one that is
created every day. I must disagree with you, it is of GREAT legal
concern. Since you obviously did not follow the link of background
information I provided David in my reply, I'll take a quote from a
section of http://library.findlaw.com/1999/Jan/1/241478.html
'According to the Copyright Act, the authors of a joint work
jointly
own the copyright in the work they create. A joint work is defined
in
Section 101 of the Copyright Act as "a work prepared by two or more
authors with the intention that their contributions be merged into
inseparable or interdependent parts of a unitary whole."'
"When the copyright in a work is jointly owned, each joint owner
can
use or license the work in the United States without the consent of
the
other owner, provided that the use does not destroy the value of
the
work and the parties do not have an agreement requiring the consent
of
each owner for use or licensing. A joint owner who licenses a work
must
share any royalties he or she receives with the other owners."
If this doesn't sound like what you did with Anil and Ashish, read
it
again. If it doesn't sound dangerous, read it again and then
_again
and then consider whether releasing something as "open source"
destroys
the value of the work. It does, there is no doubt about it.
Since a
joint owner who license a work must share any royalties he or she
receives with the other owners, guess what, the owners must share
the
liability that a joint owner creates regarding that work.
A _fancy partnership would spell out who and how the joint work can
be
distributed and be agreed to in writing and the extent to which the
other joint owners can accept liability on behalf of the class of
joint
owners. The _fancy partnership would protect us all.
1. There already is an SVN for managing the OFBiz
Yes, and IMO the only things that should go into that project are
tested contributions that can hopefully be the basis of what
someone
can run their business off of. Half tested, half implemented ideas
should be in a sandbox SVN so that the community can get them ready
for
the parent project.
2. You will have to manage mods to the trunk in patches regardless
-
unless you'd want to go with some vendor branch scheme, which in
my
experience is WAY more trouble than it's worth.
The sandbox isn't suggesting a branch or a branch structure, so
there's
no trouble. Since the two options are neutral in comparrison in
how
they get re assimilated into OFBiz, we should only concern
ourselves in
the easiest manner to incorporate the contribution into the teams
(using someone else's word). That is SVN by a long shot over JIRA
patches.
3. Why can't you play on your own box like the rest of us - and
only
submit (or commit) when you have something to say that you want
reviewed or to be shared?
That is the whole point of the discussion, no one is playing on
their
own box. You, Anil and Ashish aren't, the ofbiz-sandbox project on
sourceforge would not be and the proposed platform of the
developers
conference will not be.
Currently, the only _safe manner for a non committer to collaborate
on
his own box is to
download from Apache Ofbiz,
upload to JIRA,
have your collaborator download from JIRA,
make sure the patch works because you two may be using different
revisions
make changes
then upload to JIRA,
you download from JIRA,
make sure the patch works because you two may be using different
revisions
and so on...
Committers only have the additional benefit of using
labs.apache.org or
trunk instead of patches. This limits their possible collaborators
to
other committers.
Chris, know that I feel you here, but why don't we just try this
and
see how it goes? If you end up having a huge following for these
types of things, then I'll be the first person backing you and
doing
the leg work to put more infrastructure in place will be most
beneficial.
I've been trying it in the manner suggested by David in my spare
time
for the past two years. Other's aren't so patient and have simply
moved on. And yes, it does work somewhat, but it could work a lot
better and without us having to cross our fingers, hoping no one
tries
to sabotage the project.
Depending on your definition of "huge" it already exists. (this
also
answers someone's question earlier on who the groups were)
1. Those wanting to develop google checkout
has code, but has been lost because Phani apparently has since
stopped monitoring the mailing lists.
2. Those wanting more modularization between the components
has code, not sure where to contribute it because of the legal
scenario
3. The upcoming developer's "hackathon"
will undoubtedly have code and will be contributed in a manner
that
is subject to all the questions I have been asking.
4. Those wanting to refactor the create order process
has code, been contributed to JIRA, though because it's a patch
will
only attract those that are _really committed to the topic and not
those that have a passing interest.
5. Jonathon's rag tag team
Jonathon claims it has lots of code
