- Inkscape Board of Directors

Re: [Inkscape-board] URGENT: issues re: Jabier's travel to LGM 2015
by Bryce Harrington 24 Apr '15

24 Apr '15

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 > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.4.12 (GNU/Linux) > > iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJVOqScAAoJELVK3KckMFSETwQH/RC+yfmHdRnfMTnv+kixzdu/ > 67rLE2O7J0Q+v4Lpay/iWlgTuvxAhFWV70BeauC0VrofzmZgPP3yFF6gdx2EQUUc > CgKqu6hhxpNm+MH4DGsB2oxZnNO7Xf+IALDMm/PEI6eu7JInNUzKoTFfUdI8pF0b > EMvkayA/UHPgPO3lWhIiUVGByj9YU38tc5qcQ3PNa9jmmi/ae0tAuN8EYU6CM1r/ > +5OMugf5t3Iee8qq2pzd0ZXP5FdYf8hs/k0bmlaB/YFoPlINY2h+GU/A3Dh784q+ > xUfLZEefdKbv2sYo3TDvJ1lgCmVz2keKIZ6U5+UA8RY4LZABDuk4fb2jrrheBcw= > =rDeE > -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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[REFERENDUM] Inkscape Hackfest Dinner
by Bryce Harrington 23 Apr '15

23 Apr '15

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

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[REFERENDUM] GPL violation of inkscape
by Bryce Harrington 22 Apr '15

22 Apr '15

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 -----

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Budget page
by Bryce Harrington 18 Apr '15

18 Apr '15

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

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Hackfest Funding
by Josh Andler 15 Apr '15

15 Apr '15

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

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Board Elections
by Tavmjong Bah 21 Mar '15

21 Mar '15

Hi, And then there were five... I think we should have board elections ASAP. I believe that we have approved the voting method. Is there anything stopping us from starting the election process? Tav

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Re: [Inkscape-board] updated Inkscape FSA
by Tony Sebro 13 Mar '15

13 Mar '15

Thanks for everyone's comments -- and for your edits, Josh. I've attached an updated draft for everyone's review. In particular, I've updated the Representation section to call for elections every two years. If you'd prefer a different frequency, or if there's anything else you'd like to tweak, let me know. Josh: I also added some language to section 8 to address your concerns re: the purpose of the provisions in that section. If you have any other questions and/or suggestions, let me know. Thanks! -Tony -- Tony Sebro, General Counsel, Software Freedom Conservancy +1-212-461-3245 x11 tony@...41... www.sfconservancy.org

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Donation to SFC
by Tavmjong Bah 13 Mar '15

13 Mar '15

Hi, 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. Tav

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Re: [Inkscape-board] updated Inkscape FSA
by Bryce Harrington 12 Mar '15

12 Mar '15

On Wed, Mar 11, 2015 at 08:59:45PM -0400, Karen Sandler wrote: > corresponds to a small annual donation. For example you've given > OSUOSL $200 every year, so maybe you want to give us an amount To correct this point: We made one donation of $200 to them April 2007, and a second $200 this past January, but we've not given a yearly donation to OSUOSL. > that's equal to a retroactive $400 per year (or whatever you are > comfortable with)? It would make for a nice public statement too :) > > >Also from Tavmjong's list of concerns last time: > >The removal and addition of a board member by majority vote of the > >board > >is different from the previous agreement where the Inkscape developer > >community can vote in and out board members. I think having the > >Inkscape > >developer community vote for new members is a good thing (voting to > >remove members, I am not so sure about). > > > >This stands out to me as well. The community owns the project and > >needs to have a say in who is on the board. > > ok - we drafted the agreement as we thought you would want it. Tony, > can you propose a new section for this? > > >Section 8 feels like it was written to give SFC complete control if > >things ever turned sour. If we were to want to terminate our > >relationship with SFC (which I don't see happening), it feels like you > >dictate all the terms and hold all the cards... it feels like a scary > >prenuptial agreement. I'm not implying that SFC would act in such a > >way, but that it is written so that it's an option, so it makes me > >feel uneasy. > > Actually, this provision hasn't changed since the initial agreement > I wrote back in 2006 :) > > It's drafted so that the project has as much chance as possible to > find another organization (Conservancy can only object if it's > reasonable - for example, say Inkscape wants to transfer its assets > to TagSoup - a proprietary software nonprofit). I don't think we can > make this provision any looser without running afoul of our tax > obligations - once assets are in a c3 charitable organization they > can't just be transferred to anyone, since they are being held in > the public's interest. > > In practice, the few member projects that have decided to leave have > not had a problem - we've done the best we can to help them > transition (Mifos even had Conservancy flyers at their OSCON booth > last year!) > > I hope this helps. > karen > > >Cheers, > >Josh > > > > > > > > > >On Wed, Mar 11, 2015 at 3:15 PM, Josh Andler <scislac@...23...> wrote: > >So, I fixed a couple things in there. Two were textual (an omitted > >letter, and an omitted word), the others were minor formatting things > >my OCD wouldn't let me leave be. I did it with track changes on so > >it's easy to see. There was one which didn't get tracked which is odd, > >but I unbolded the 2. before "Project Management and Activities". I > >hope this isn't unwelcome. > > > >On Wed, Mar 11, 2015 at 11:32 AM, Tony Sebro > ><tony@...41...> wrote: > >Hi, all. > >Karen and I discussed the employer conflict provision in the > >representation section. Given the historical lack of corporate > >influence in the Inkscape project, we're fine with removing the > >provision entirely. Committee members will still be bound by > >Conservancy's conflict of interest policy; we think that should be > >enough. > > > >I've attached an updated version of the FSA for your review. If you > >have any other questions, let me know; if not, I'll send around an > >execution copy. > > > >Thanks! Best, -Tony > > > >-- > >Tony Sebro, General Counsel, Software Freedom Conservancy > >+1-212-461-3245 x11 > >tony@...41... > >www.sfconservancy.org > >

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Re: [Inkscape-board] updated Inkscape FSA
by Josh Andler 12 Mar '15

12 Mar '15

On Wed, Mar 11, 2015 at 5:59 PM, Karen Sandler <karen@...41...> wrote: > The Google reimbursements aren't income. Understood. > That sounds fine. I actually proposed in #inkscape-devel that instead of a > retroactive 10%, you just give us an amount that corresponds to a small > annual donation. For example you've given OSUOSL $200 every year, so maybe > you want to give us an amount that's equal to a retroactive $400 per year > (or whatever you are comfortable with)? It would make for a nice public > statement too :) The donation approach sounds MUCH more palatable and appealing in fact. We do feel we owe you all, and we want to show our appreciation. We will let you know what we settle on, but I would say having language in the FSA to deal with it rather than it being on our honor is probably not the best approach. > Actually, this provision hasn't changed since the initial agreement I wrote > back in 2006 :) I'm not surprised. I probably also didn't scrutinize things as much the first time I read through it. > It's drafted so that the project has as much chance as possible to find > another organization (Conservancy can only object if it's reasonable - for > example, say Inkscape wants to transfer its assets to TagSoup - a > proprietary software nonprofit). I don't think we can make this provision > any looser without running afoul of our tax obligations - once assets are in > a c3 charitable organization they can't just be transferred to anyone, since > they are being held in the public's interest. Thank you for the clarification. This put me more at ease personally, but there is kind of part of me that wants to ask is it possible to distill it down with a leading statement that says something to the effect of "For the protection of of SFC and the Project, if our relationship is to be terminated it needs to be inline with all related tax obligations and the public interest, which entails:" > I hope this helps. It did, as always, thank you for your time and patience for those of use who are protective and somewhat concerned oldtimers with the project. Cheers, Josh

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