On Nov 28, 2007 5:49 PM, Rasmus Lerdorf <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Lukas Kahwe Smith wrote:
> >
> > On 28.11.2007, at 00:28, Pierre wrote:
> >
> >> One word: transparency.
> >>
> >> It is amazing how it helps to discuss things instead of acting like that.
> >
> > I find it amazing how oblivious to community concerns this all is.
> > Anyways, from some other discussions I gathered that the main thing that
> > is currently being talked about is CLA's. Once they have a CLA in place
> > they will "open" the discussions. From what I hear at least part of the
> > previous "secret" discussions will then be opened as well via some kind
> > of archive.
>
> I agree. As most of you know, I met with IBM a couple of years ago the
> last time they were keen on getting a CLA in place so they could
> contribute more. I voiced my skepticism, but kept an open mind and put
> the ball in their court asking them to write up a detailed explanation
> of how a CLA will help the average PHP contributor. They said they
> would do that and disappeared never to be heard from again.
>
> My stance on this hasn't changed. I don't care the slightest how a CLA
> helps them, I want to hear what it does for us. The obvious benefit for
> the project is to get more contributions, but the cost of those
> contributions in terms of a CLA burden has to be weighed. And so far
> nobody has adequately justified why the average PHP contributor should
> sign a CLA.
>
> The existing CLA stuff on IBM-specific stuff like DB2, SDO and IDS was
> something I didn't care much about since it was pretty much entirely an
> IBM effort and I doubted there would be a general interest in those
> things, which has pretty much turned out to be the case. But I am very
> much against expanding this to cover more of PHP and encroaching on
> general-purpose things that a large number of non-patent encumbered PHP
> contributors would have an interest in.
>
> So yes, before this goes any further, we need full disclosure here and a
> really well thought out explanation by someone convincing us of the
> benefits of signing a CLA. Barring that, I am with Marcus and Lukas on
> this. Keep it out of PHP CVS and host it somewhere else.
>
> -Rasmus
>
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>
>
Without sounding too naive on this, I hope, isn't it also possible
that IBM's internal policies require them to have CLAs in place for
tax and documentation purposes? Or perhaps to cover their own
engineers from liability by claiming them as open source developers,
protected under the agreement accepted, ultimately, by the end user.
I'd concur that it doesn't belong in the PHP CVS because it's out
of the scope and spirit of the initial project, but is it really such
a Big Brother issue? It states that all developers are completely
free to use and redistribute any code they commit to the repository
and the project as a whole, and further, that any user can then use it
freely to create derivative works from said code, et cetera.
Of course, it does lay the groundwork for new licensing in the
future, whereby this project could eventually take on more and more of
PHP, until a project that began as open source joins the ranks as a
commercial competitor to ASP and Java.
Then again, maybe I'm missing something or just blowing smoke out
of my ass. I'm exhausted, but I'm trying to understand a bit more
about the hot-button parts of the issue.
--
Daniel P. Brown
[office] (570-) 587-7080 Ext. 272
[mobile] (570-) 766-8107
If at first you don't succeed, stick to what you know best so that you
can make enough money to pay someone else to do it for you.
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