[REFERENDUM] Donation to SFC
by Bryce Harrington
[Reposting]
A majority vote of the current board members is required for the following
proposal relating to retroactive payment to SFC.
Proposal:
1. In light of the services provided by the Software Freedom Consortium to
date, given on voluntary basis, should we provide a retroactive
donation to the SFC?
[ ] Yes, donate to SFC in thanks for their past support.
[ ] No. We should pay only the required 10% fee going forward
from date of signature of the new FSA.
2. Assuming we should donate to the SFC, how much should we donate to
SFC?
[ ] a. 10% of gross income since we have been a member (9 years).
[ ] b. 10% of gross income since initiation of FSA #2 discussions
(2012).
[ ] c. A flat amount of $400 per year that we have been a member
(2009). This amounts to $3600.
[ ] d. A flat amount of $400 per year since FSA #2 (2012).
This amounts to $1200.
[ ] e. Some other amount:
_________________________________________________________
Background:
Tav writes,
"I agree with Josh and Ted that a donation to the SFC is appropriate for
their past work on our behalf. Can we agree on the amount? I would
propose $400 for each year we have been a member. We have been a member
for 9 years so that would be $3600.
This assumes that the 10% kicks in on the date the new FSA is approved.
"
We were asked by Bradley to provide 10% of our revenue to SFC in 2012:
(b) As I've discussed with a number of you, including Jon, Josh and
Tavmjong, Inkscape has received fiscal sponsorship services
from Conservancy at no charge since 2006. Back when
Conservancy was founded, I was an SFLC employee and SFLC was
subsidizing my time -- effectively donating staff time to
Conservancy. This ceased in early 2008, and I served as a
volunteer for Conservancy on nights/weekends until 2011, when I
became a full-time employee -- which was the only way to keep
it going with the services it promises (the other option would
have been to shut down Conservancy). Since then, to maintain
legal services as part of the service plan once SFLC shrunk
further, we hired Tony as well. We get a lot done with a staff
of two, but obviously we need financial resources to be able to
provide these services.
Conservancy's Board of Directors voted about a year ago that
all member projects should be required to give 10% of their
earmarked revenue to support Conservancy to continue to provide
services. This is a standard way for a fiscal sponsor to
operate, and we were lucky before that we weren't required to
do this, and I'd been waiting to bother Inkscape with this
since you are one of our older members. (We haven't taken a new
member for anything other than 10% in a few years, BTW). I
hope a 10% arrangement as we use with other projects now will
be acceptable to you, and I and Tony are happy to discuss
further this issue.
In December 2012, we voted generally favorable to paying the 10% fee
going forward from 2012. There were questions regarding pass-thru of
Google SOC payments and so on, but generally favored the basic idea:
https://sourceforge.net/p/inkscape/mailman/inkscape-board/?viewmonth=201212
For comparison, Software in the Public Interest (SPI), an organization
analogous to the SFC, provides similar services and takes 5% of net
(after credit card, etc. fees):
http://www.spi-inc.org/projects/associated-project-howto/
7 years, 9 months
Re: [Inkscape-board] URGENT: issues re: Jabier's travel to LGM 2015
by Bryce Harrington
On Fri, Apr 24, 2015 at 04:16:28PM -0400, Tony Sebro wrote:
> Hi, all.
>
> As you know, the Inkscape Committee approved and Conservancy booked a
> flight for Jabier from Madrid to attend LGM 2015. His flight is
> scheduled to depart tomorrow. We're now facing an issue where an
> inconsistency between his name on the ticket and his name on his
> passport may prevent him from traveling. There's a possibility that we
> will need to pay a ticket re-issuing fee or buy another ticket in order
> for him to travel; to do so, we would need the Inkscape Committee's
> approval. See below for details.
>
> ***
>
> Jabier's full name (as he provided to us, and as printed on his
> passport) is "Francisco Javier Arraiza Cenoz". I booked the ticket via
> Orbitz back in March; the Orbitz reservation displays Jabier's full name
> as "FRANCISCO JAVIERARRAIZA CENOZ" (they ignored the space between the
> middle two names). Jabier expressed concern about the discrepancy, so
> Karen spent a few hours in March on the phone with Orbitz and the two
> airlines on the itinerary (Delta and KLM). She finally received
> confirmation from an Orbitz sales rep that Jabier should be able to
> travel on the ticket as-is[1].
>
> Today, Jabier printed out his boarding pass; the name on the boarding
> pass is "FRANCISCO CENOZ". He called KLM (airline operator of the first
> leg of the itinerary) to confirm that he'd be able to travel under that
> name; the KLM agent told him no. I spent a few hours on the phone with
> Orbitz trying to work out a solution. According to Orbitz, it's up to
> the Delta ticketing agent at the airport to make a "judgment call" as to
> whether to let Jabier on the plane or not.
>
> I spent another hour fighting with Delta about it; Delta claims that
> Orbitz didn't pass along the right information and didn't properly
> populate the secure flight passenger information. So, I'm about to call
> Orbitz again.
$%^&# airlines.
> *Either way:* barring any new information from Delta, KLM, or Orbitz,
> we advise Jabier to get to the airport early tomorrow to ask the Delta
> ticketing agent at the airport to a) honor the ticket under the printed
> name, and b) instruct KLM to do the same. If they refuse, we'd have to
> consider the option of buying a new ticket in order for Jabier to travel.
>
> As of right now, there is another, similar itinerary available for
> $720.70 that would get Jabier into Toronto at the same time of his
> original itinerary, and would have him return to Madrid two hours later
> on May 3rd. That price may change by tomorrow. Is the Inkscape
> Committee willing to approve this additional expense (+/- $100 or so),
> should it be necessary? Please advise. If you approve the additional
> expense, then we'd instruct Jabier to contact us in the event that he's
> unable to travel on the original ticket, and we'd book a new itinerary
> on the spot.
+1 vote from me.
> Thanks. -Tony
>
> [1] I brought this earlier conversation up with Orbitz today; they're
> going to conduct an investigation. But, the investigation will not be
> resolved in time to affect Jabier's travel.
>
> --
> Tony Sebro, General Counsel, Software Freedom Conservancy
> +1-212-461-3245 x11
> tony@...41...
> www.sfconservancy.org
>
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7 years, 11 months
[REFERENDUM] Inkscape Hackfest Dinner
by Bryce Harrington
A majority vote of the current board members is required for the
following matter.
Proposal:
Should the Inkscape Board send the Inkscape hackfest team out for dinner
at a nice restaraunt while in Toronto?
[ ] a. Yea, for the estimated cost of up to $400
[ ] b. Nay
On approval, we'll find a good restaraunt (perhaps suggested by our
local contacts), make a reservation, and arrange cab transportation as
needed. Attendance is estimated at 8-10 people, and dinner as costing
around $30-35 per person.
Bryce
7 years, 11 months
[REFERENDUM] GPL violation of inkscape
by Bryce Harrington
A majority vote of the current board members is required for the
following Inkscape GPL violation matter.
Proposal:
[ ] a. Approve purchase of Digital Fashion Pro by the
Conservancy lawyers, up to $250.
[ ] b. Approve purchase of Digital Fashion Pro by the
Conservancy lawyers, at any price.
[ ] c. Do not approve purchase
Background:
Hi guys,
It's been brought to our attention that there is a company selling
software called Digital Fashion Pro, which in actuality is just Inkscape
with some templates thrown in, and a price tag in the hundreds or
thousands of dollars. It appears they neither mention that the software
is open source under the GPL, nor make offers of source code for
download, which is a GPL violation.
In order to establish legal proof of the violation, Conservancy needs to
verify the lack of source offer, and to do that they need to examine a
purchased copy of the software. Their policy is to ask the infringed
project (i.e. us) to foot the bill for that copy. If it is found that
the company is in fact in violation, they will be asked (or legally
required) to repay this amount. They may also be required to pay legal
fees, and to come into compliance with the GPL.
The price of the software has varied during the time of observation.
Currently it is "on sale" for $200, but I've seen it offered at $500
and even $1500.
Please see below for the Conservancy's estimation of the likely
best/typical/worst case resolution of this.
Bryce
------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 04/08/2015 04:33 AM, Bryce Harrington wrote:
> Before we get too far into this, can I ask a basic question?
> What is the best/likely/worst outcomes we should expect from engaging
> with them on this?
Probably the best outcome would be for us to find that they already
include a fully-compliant source release of Digital Fashion Pro along
with the product itself, and that they are willing to update their
advertising to make it clear that Digital Fashion Pro is a modified
version of Inkscape (assuming that lack of clarity is one of the current
issues). Even better would be for them to release Digital Fashion Pro
and its source code at no charge, but I don't think this is likely given
that it seems to be a main revenue stream so I wouldn't consider it a
possible outcome really. Another good outcome would be that, though
they didn't ship source initially, they give us a source candidate when
we first contact them and it happens to be compliant, so we charge them
for our time and they pay us. They might even agree to allow us to
write a Conservancy blog post praising them for coming into compliance,
though usually companies don't since they don't like people knowing that
they weren't in compliance to begin with. But if we did get that,
perhaps by giving them a discount on what we charge them for our time
checking their source, it would be very helpful in deterring future
violators and encouraging compliance generally, as people would see
Conservancy is reasonable and willing to work with violators to amicably
resolve issues without public shaming.
The worst outcome would be that we spend a lot of resources on this
issue and it drags on for a year or more and they're unwilling to budge
so we have to file a lawsuit and we eventually have to agree to a
settlement that offers only the minimum compliance required by the GPL.
That minimum compliance might not resolve the trademark issues, which
we could try to resolve some other way (through a separate action,
possibly also including a lawsuit). "Minimum compliance" would in
practice likely involve them providing source only to people who have
purchased Digital Fashion Pro and who have asked for source. Also, we
may have to keep chasing them as they may then release new versions that
are not compliant. Note that we very rarely file lawsuits to achieve
compliance - this is a worst-case scenario.
A likely outcome is that we buy Digital Fashion Pro, find that it
doesn't include source code or an offer for source code, and then when
we ask for source, they initially claim they don't need to send us any,
but eventually they capitulate and send us some source code they think
corresponds to the Digital Fashion Pro binaries they ship. We will
probably need to go back and forth with them a few times when it doesn't
build correctly, but we will likely reach a point where they have
provided all the source to us. We'll ask them to include an offer for
source with their product, which they'll do, and provide source on a CD
or similar to anyone who's bought the product and asks for source. This
who process would probably take 6 months to a year. I hesitate somewhat
to say this is a "likely outcome", but given the information I have so
far (see below), it's difficult to provide a more accurate assessment.
Another possible outcome is that they agree to stop distributing Digital
Fashion Pro and any other software that includes or is based on
Inkscape. This would be compliant, but is also an unlikely outcome
since Inkscape-derived copies of software seem to be one of their main
revenue streams.
> I ask because I know it'll be a hassle to pursue this, and want to make
> sure the benefits are going worth the effort. I'll need to get
> Inkscape's board to agree to pay for the validation copy of the
> software, so I'd like to communicate to them what outcome we're aiming
> to see.
Hopefully the above will help with that, though I would emphasize that
it's very difficult to tell where any violation matter might go,
especially in a situation like this where it is extremely unclear how
close to compliance they might be (without buying the software). One
option for getting a better idea without buying Digital Fashion Pro
would be to contact a person who has received Digital Fashion Pro and
ask them whether the distribution they received was compliant - we could
contact such a person for you if you know of one. In any case, we will
probably have a much better idea of the willingness of Digital Fashion
Pro's distributors to work with us after we have downloaded Digital
Fashion Pro and made initial contact with them (assuming it is
violating, which seems likely). We could most likely make this initial
contact within a month or two of us buying Digital Fashion Pro.
Let me know if you have any questions about any of this. Thanks!
Denver
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Forwarded message from Denver Gingerich <compliance@...41...> -----
Date: Fri, 03 Apr 2015 18:15:31 -0400
From: Denver Gingerich <compliance@...41...>
To: Bryce Harrington <bryce@...107...>
Cc: Karen Sandler <karen@...41...>, Tony Sebro <tony@...41...>
Subject: Re: GPL violation on Inkscape
On 03/31/2015 02:16 PM, Bryce Harrington wrote:
> Hi Karen,
>
> Guessing this got lost amongst all the GPL violation mail... I know
> you're really busy. Real quick though, is this something SFC might be
> able to help us with, or should we pursue it ourselves?
Yes, Conservancy can help with this, though we will likely need more
facts in order to take action. I've described what we need below.
Apologies for the delay in responding; compliance matters like this
are generally handled by me, but I only work at Conservancy one day a
week.
> On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 05:20:09PM -0700, Bryce Harrington wrote:
>> Hi Karen,
>>
>> See email from Maren below. This company is selling a product called
>> Digital Fashion Pro for $1446 (academic price $499), which consists of
>> Inkscape bundled with some training materials and templates. You can
>> see the software is just rebranded Inkscape via their main video:
>>
>> http://startingaclothingline.com/html/pu-demo.html
There are likely both copyright and trademark issues here. I mainly
work with the copyright issues myself; I've CCed Tony, Conservancy's
general counsel, who has more knowledge of trademark issues.
To continue with investigating the possible copyright infringement
case (that is, the potential GPL violation), we normally prefer to
have some "hard evidence". To obtain this evidence, we'd like to
purchase Digital Fashion Pro to confirm that it does indeed violate
the GPL (likely by failing to provide source code or an offer for
source).
I see at http://shop.startingaclothingline.com/ that "1b- Digital
Fashion Pro V8 Basic" is currently available for $199. That seems to
be the least expensive version that's likely to include Inkscape.
With enforcement work like this, we typically ask the member project
to pay any direct costs, such as the $199 cost of buying Digital
Fashion Pro in this case, but we do not charge the member project for
any Conservancy staff time. Of course, we will ask the violator to
pay our costs, including the cost of buying the product (ie. Digital
Fashion Pro), which would then revert to the member project. However,
be aware that we often aren't able to collect from violators, for a
variety of reasons.
For more details about Conservancy's usual procedures for enforcing
the GPL, feel free to read
https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2012/feb/01/gpl-enforcement/ .
>> Also, on their troubleshooting page it explicitly references "Free IS.48
>> Vector Application", which they copy protect with a serial number to
>> unlock it during install.
>>
>> http://startingaclothingline.com/html/troubleshooting.html
It's hard to say from that page exactly how the serial number is being
used and whether their method would violate the GPL. Since we should
obtain the software anyway in order to check more general compliance,
we can assess the serial number issue once we receive the software.
>> ----- Forwarded message from maren@...92... -----
>>
>> Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2015 22:56:58 +0100
>> From: maren@...92...
>> To: Bryce Harrington <bryce@...2...>
>> Subject: Strange Inkscape redistribution - could this be a GPL violation?
[...]
>> You can follow up on this here:
>> https://answers.launchpad.net/inkscape/+question/263166
>>
>> Also, it is not clear if they offer a modified version or the original
>> software. At least they seem to call it differently.
This is another fact pattern that we'd like to confirm, which again
would be most easily done after we receive the software.
Please let me know if you have any questions at all about any of this.
Thanks!
Denver Gingerich
FLOSS License Compliance Engineer
Software Freedom Conservancy
----- End forwarded message -----
7 years, 11 months
Budget page
by Bryce Harrington
Hi All,
The Inkscape Budget for 2015 is now posted on our website:
https://inkscape.org/en/about/governance/budget/
As mentioned on the page, the purpose of this budget is to help the
board in deciding expenditures for the year, and we'll be periodically
updating it as further expenses get decided.
Bryce
7 years, 11 months
Hackfest Funding
by Josh Andler
Hi Bryce and all,
As I brought up in IRC, I'd like to see Jabiertxof bumped up to the
$1500 sponsorship mark for the hackfest. He has been working on
Inkscape since at least October of '12 (he asked for testing of a
branch at that point on the devel list), even though he wasn't a
committer at that time... anyway, I definitely think it counts as
being a contributor back then (plus he is also over 100 commits).
Given the pretty good success of the fundraising for the hackfest, I
don't think this will ding our coffers (since I don't think we're
going to have to use much of what we already allocated). This is just
more of a formality so the board is aware of him meeting the
requirements for the next level of funding.
Cheers,
Josh
7 years, 11 months
