On Jul 22, 2005, at 5:01 PM, Mark Wielaard wrote:
Hi,
On Thu, 2005-07-21 at 05:53 -0400, Geir Magnusson Jr. wrote:
We seem to be giving mixed signals here. Can we try to coordinate a
bit more on the policies we want to have for this project? Even
if we
cannot agree on some things it would be good to setup some
resolution
mechanism.
Agreed. What do you suggest?
In this particular case I suggest we just do a vote.
While voting is a good way to come to a decision, we have to remember
that we are working as an Apache project, and we need to be a bit
more careful on how we go about this because the Apache License is
the standard license for Apache projects and in the end, it's not up
to us. For example, even if we voted for the GPL as our default
license, it wouldn't be permitted.
I see two solutions :
1) Find a license for list contributions that is acceptable to the
wider community. There have been a few good suggestions, and I'm
doing some internal discussion to see what is possible.
2) Because the incompatibility between the ALv2 and GPL is such a
small, obscure corner case (I tried to explain it to myself, and
couldn't.. it's really subtle), a solution would be to have an
additional statement for list contributions that resolves that
issue. I assume you'd be satisfied with that?
It was pointed out to me that my suggestion of MIT/X as default
license
is an acceptable choice for an incubator project:
http://incubator.apache.org/projects/harmony.html#Licensing+awareness
Check and make sure that all source code distributed by the
project is covered by one or more of the following approved
licenses: Apache, BSD, Artistic, MIT/X, MIT/W3C, MPL 1.1, or
something with essentially the same terms.
Since MIT/X is listed as one of the choices I propose to use this
as our
default license for all code that we accept for Harmony (and for which
there is a Disclaimer/Software Grant/Contributors Agreement is on
file).
+1
I hope this is proper procedure.
Well, procedure is good, but the problem is that the point of that
item on the checklist is no ensure that the code we distribute is
appropriately licensed, not that we have the freedom to choose the
license that we work under. This item is for anything that the
project chose to use from outside - that it needed to either
distribute as-is or needed to make a derivative work of for some reason.
In general I think we should try to explain the reasoning and goals a
bit more. I get the feeling there is too much assumptions being done
that things must be because that is how Apache does it.
Yes, we will default to the Apache rules, because this is a part of
the Apache Software Foundation. We are very interested in
collaboration, and will address each issue that's raised by the
community.
But things do take time, and you have to be patient.
We are not an
Apache project (yet?). We are currently going through incubation and
might or might not come out as something that Apache wants as a
project.
To be precise, we are not officially a project of the ASF but rather
are a part of the Apache Incubator project, so in fact, we are part
of the ASF, subject to the decisions of the Apache Incubator PMC.
If we are really serious about making this project a success then we
should assume that the people participating want to know the
reasons for
each decision. Even if someone feels that it is obvious because
that is
the way Apache has always done it. Maybe we can even influence how
Apache will do things in the future by reflecting on why something
is a
"normal" guideline.
That's right, and that's why I posed the the rules, to be explicit.
I knew that there would be conversation :)
And if we really get into conflict with traditional requirements
for an
proposed Apache project and the wishes of the contributors I am more
then happy to setup a repository on some neutral machine so that we
can
at least (temporarily) work on some code.
That won't be of interest to me. Lets get things fixed here.
geir
--
Geir Magnusson Jr +1-203-665-6437
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
