Chris,
Ugh. Remind me never to take up law. (Yeah, I know, I'll be cannon
fodder for big boys with lawyers.)
> This structure, however does not protect the contributor (you) of
a
> joint work.
Ok. So if I stole someone else's private work and contributed it to a
committer who commits this
stolen work to ASF, then I'm liable for the theft, and ASF and the
committer are not liable.
> Not a pretty pickle.
No, it's not pretty to software vendors, OFBiz consultants needing
money for a living, etc. But
that's not my concern. I leave that to businessmen.
> Does this make my understanding of the scenario clear?
Quite a bit clearer. Thanks.
Jonathon
Chris Howe wrote:
IMO, this is certainly not a non-issue, it's the issue I've been
trying
to get a definitive answer to for the last few weeks and everyone
wants
to simply ignore it and act like we're a bunch of hippies. It's
fun
being a hippie until some large corporation comes by and carts your
commune off their land. Then you're not a hippie, you're just
homeless.
I've changed my stance slightly contemplating Jonathon's questions.
I
think this explanation is more correct, consistent and also easier
to
follow. But again IANAL.
Comments inline.
--- Jonathon -- Improov <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
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?).
AFAIK, correct.
How do I publish codes (assuming I do have a semi-public SVN
shared
between a few friends) without
damaging that license?
The license is fine. The owner of a copyright can write as many
nonexclusive licenses as he/she/it/they wish. However, I don't
believe
a joint owner can grant the Apache 2 license to anyone without
greatly
diminishes the financial value of the work itself. This is further
compounded by granting the Apache 2 license to the ASF as one of
their
main functions is to distribute that work freely to anyone who
points a
browser or other client software in their direction.
"According to the Copyright Act... *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*."
What if I explicitly mention that I INTEND to merge my private
sandbox into OFBiz as a collection
of "interdependent parts of a unitary whole". Will that mean the
OFBiz core team and my own ragtag
team become a partnership?
No. This I believe is the trick of the contributor license
agreement.
Your "patch" is a complete work and you are granting license to
anyone
who has access to JIRA the Apache 2 license. The committers of
OFBiz
as individuals accept your complete work and make a contribution to
the
ASF project under the terms of the CLA. The only interaction with
the
ASF is between the committer and the ASF, not you. This, I believe
protects the ASF to only being subject to cease and desist orders
in
the event of infringement. This structure should also protect the
committer as it is their impression the work is being licensed
under
Apache 2. This structure, however does not protect the contributor
(you) of a joint work.
The problem as I see it with your semi-private SVN is that your
"patch"
is not exclusively yours, it's the joint owners. You as a joint
owner
can license it anyway you want as long as you share the royalties
and
don't diminish its value.
Distributing it under Apache 2, diminishes its value. So, only an
individual entity (individual or corporation) can distribute it
under
Apache 2. The only way as I see around this is to have a specific
agreement amongst all joint owners allowing for its distribution
under
Apache 2. This agreement creates a legally binding partnership and
now
you're subject to the representations and liabilities that the
other
joint owners make regarding the joint work in their licensing to
other
people. Not a pretty pickle.
Does this make my understanding of the scenario clear?
On a side note (from the findlaw article), a copyright holder
cannot
waive their termination right in advance. This makes for an
interesting scenario 35 years from now. Perhaps the ASF should
reconsider the copyright assignment that the FSF has adopted.
Although
then you have to rethink the trick of the CLA. This could get
scary as
the copyright is owned by the estate and thus can be distributed to
heirs/debtors upon death.
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
