On Sun, Aug 14, 2011 at 2:06 PM, drew <d...@baseanswers.com> wrote: > On Sun, 2011-08-14 at 13:37 -0400, Rob Weir wrote: >> On Sun, Aug 14, 2011 at 1:06 PM, drew <d...@baseanswers.com> wrote: >> > [from out of left field] >> > Would members consider transferring ownership of the current repository >> > hosted on the OSUOSL server to a third party, perhaps created >> > specifically to take this over, and then working with them to create the >> > indirect reference site under the AOO project, filtering out >> > un-acceptably licensed items as a way to achieving option #2. This would >> > move the entire repository without needing to locate individual authors. >> > >> >> I don't see how we can claim ownership of the content on the OSUOSL >> server. > > Hi Rob, > > Well, I'm not at all sure I agree with that, what exactly happened then > when the Sun brand came off the site and the Oracle brand went up, that > was window dressing with regards to the site name - Oracle could not of > moved the site to xxx.oracleoffice.org even if they also maintained a > live redirect of the old address? >
Generally, you may do whatever the owner of the copyright allows you to do. The trick is to determine what the copyright owner allows you. With the lax attention to this detail by the OOo community over the years, this important fact is hard to determine in many cases. This is something we should not seek to repeat at Apache. Not just with extensions, but throughout the project we are going to find a mix: 1) Things we are certain we have rights to use, e.g., things in the SGA, under Apache 2.0, things with clear provenance 2) Things that we are certain we do not have rights to use, e.g., GPL components. 3) Things that we cannot determine whether or not we have rights to use. We're going to spend most of our time on that 3rd category. But once we've done that, and documented it, then we've improved the project considerably and made it easier for us and others going forward. But it might require that we eliminate some contributions that were otherwise excellent, because we cannot confirm our rights to use them. >> It was not part of the Oracle SGA, as far as I know. So it >> is not ours to give to a 3rd party. >> >> But if a 3rd party steps forward and is willing to navigate the >> licenses and figure out way to host them all, then I'd wish them the >> best of luck. >> >> The main technical things we need to coordinate are: >> >> 1) How are submissions made to the catalog >> >> 2) How is the catalog queried? >> >> 3) How are extension updates propagated? >> >> 4) Do we want a single catalog, in the style of Firefox plugins, or >> allow multiple catalogs, perhaps filtered by support category or >> license, like Ubuntu? >> >> 5) What do we need to do to ensure a clean programmatic interface to >> the catalog (a RESTful service) as well as a good end-user UI? >> >> 6) Is there a way we can manage, with sufficient user data protection >> provisions, some sort of recommendation engine, where extensions are >> recommended either based on user actions, or based on ratings and >> similarities to other users (collaborative filtering)? >> >> 7) Is there anything we can do to allow the user to interact with >> extensions (browse, sort, filter, download, rate, update, etc.) >> entirely within OOo editors? >> >> So in general, I think this is an opportunity to do more than just >> re-host the existing extensions site. It is an opportunity to rethink >> how users and extensions authors could interact. > > I agree with much of that > - I guess I would opt here to pull us back from either my > out-of-left-field idea, or the perfect solution for the moment. > > Just hit the templates site and it's back, I would rather we ask the > current admin about what, if any, maintenance is needing done on the > site, and then we should offer, if it would help, to try and find some > volunteer help to get that done, asap. > That sounds like a wonderful near-term solution. It is a matter of perspective: 1) Is the extensions site an official service provided by the project? or 2) Is the extensions site a 3rd party service for the benefit of the larger community? I think either one is fine, but each has its own constraints. With #1, we are then under Apache rules for license, etc. But we can use Apache hardware. And for #2, we are free to link to the external service from our website, but we should have a disclaimer, along the lines of what Apache Subversion has for its binary releases: "The Apache Subversion project does not officially endorse or maintain any binary packages of the Subversion software. However, volunteers have created binary packages for different distributions and platforms, and as a convenience, we maintain a list of links to them here." > While not to lose focus on working those longer term ideas. > > Best wishes, > > //drew > >
