On Fri, Jun 29, 2012 at 09:59:28AM -0500, Ted Gould wrote:
On Fri, 2012-06-29 at 11:40 -0300, Felipe Sanches wrote:
I fully support this initiative. And I like the idea of copyright assignments.
I agree. I think that we should talk about it as a CLA instead of CA. While personally I think that CA is more honest (as CLA does effectively the same thing, but without telling you) it has gotten a lot of bad press, and there is less so with CLAs.
I'm with you guys; let contributors keep their copyrights but just require they provide a central body with license authority.
Another idea to consider would be to have everybody elect a proxy for deciding licensing issues/changes in the future. The only necessary condition, in my opinion, would be to make this proxy sign a document stating it's commitment to keeping the code libre (respecting the 4 essential freedoms) and preserving copyleft to avoid proprietarization of our codebase.
I think the assignee would be us, as the Inkscape Foundation/Board with the SFC as the custodial agent. So, we'd would need to state that and make it as part of our charter. I'd have no problem with that and consider it a good idea. I'd rather not say that we'll keep it "GPL vX" and instead say "we'll support the four freedoms and maintaining it as free software."
+1.
If we add this power to the board, I think it really ups the need for doing a new round of elections. Both to give developers some say in who is going to make licensing choices, and to replace inactive or departing members.
On Fri, Jun 29, 2012 at 11:33 AM, Josh Andler <scislac@...23...> wrote: This will require a substantial amount of someone's time (as I see it, at the least trying to contact everyone who has contributed previously), but I'm willing to make this my last set of acts on the board before I step down. I was originally planning on holding off for a month and a half until after some vacation time, but, it just needs to get moving sooner rather than later imho.
Yes, that's basically it. The probably we'll have is with people who don't agree on the relicense, and then deciding what should happen there. But, I think we need that list before we can make a decision about what to do with it.
Agreed we need to know how big the problem is. I suspect it's going to be a small percentage of the codebase, so we would just give say a month, after which time the illegal code (at least the original VCS contribution and all edits by that author) must be excised from the codebase.
I'm seeking relevant discussion and a vote to escalate this to the SFC to see if they feel confident enough to take this on. As a tertiary item, once we are well informed, I'm also asking potential permission for use of the foundation's funds for legal services if the costs are within reason and the board agrees that it is an appropriate use of the money.
+1, I don't think we have a choice, this is something we need to do.
Agreed.
Bryce