Re: Copyright issues re Debian website (was: Copyright issues)

Dear SPI

The OpenWrt.org project is presently exploring/discussing various
directions in terms of organizational changes, copyright consolidation
etc. We're considering to draw the same conclusions as MadWifi.org, but
I have a specific question in regard to the copyright issue.

There would be a number of benifits for OpenWrt.org if it became a more
organized entity, which also would include copyright consolidation
within the project. But, how is this aspect specificly handled in SPI?
SPI is a 'legal entity' which handles certain practical tasks for their
members - but, how does this relate to the copyright aspect?

Sincerely

--
Gregers Petersen
Anthropology, talk and people-stuff

Gregers Petersen <glp(at)openwrt(dot)org> wrote: [...]
> There would be a number of benifits for OpenWrt.org if it became a more
> organized entity, which also would include copyright consolidation
> within the project. But, how is this aspect specificly handled in SPI?
> SPI is a 'legal entity' which handles certain practical tasks for their
> members - but, how does this relate to the copyright aspect?

I think the most relevant summary is
Position and Promises about Intellectual Property
http://www.spi-inc.org/corporate/resolutions/1998-11-16.iwj.2
and its section on Software Copyright:-

"SPI does not encourage software authors to assign copyright in
their work to SPI. It is usually in everyone's best interests for
the original author to retain their copyright, and to release it
under a good free software licence such as the GNU General Public
License (preferably stating version 2 or, at your option, any later
version').

Nevertheless, in some circumstances authors may wish to assign
software copyright to SPI. In this case SPI will release the
software under the GNU General Public License unless the nature of
software requires a less restrictive licence. In any case SPI will
release such software under a licence compatible with the GNU GPL."

As for how it has been handled in practice, see
http://www.spi-inc.org/corporate/meeting-minutes/2005/board-meeting-october-18th-2005.html
http://www.spi-inc.org/corporate/meeting-minutes/2005/board-meeting-december-13th-2005.html
(again, why are those minutes still draft?) where (IMO) SPI ducked the
issue of debian's website copyright because the board didn't prepare
before the meeting. The problem remains to this day, AIUI, without
even a clear description of what needs to happen to resolve it.

I'm not aware of other cases where SPI has done anything about any
copyright interest. I can think of two cases where I'm unhappy with
SPI's handling of other property, but I doubt the SFC-style approach
would have done better. What benefits are you anticipating?

Personally, I suspect developers keeping their own copyright interests
and agreeing to cooperate in some ways would be the best move. No-one
has as much motive for fixing stuff as the project's participants.

Regards,
--
MJ Ray http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html tel:+44-844-4437-237 -
Webmaster-developer, statistician, sysadmin, online shop builder,
consumer and workers co-operative member http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ -
Writing on koha, debian, sat TV, Kewstoke http://mjr.towers.org.uk/

Hi Gregers,

On Tue, Mar 04, 2008 at 02:19:55PM +0000, MJ Ray wrote:
> I think the most relevant summary is
> Position and Promises about Intellectual Property
> http://www.spi-inc.org/corporate/resolutions/1998-11-16.iwj.2
> and its section on Software Copyright:-
[quote snipped]

The document to which MJ refers is accurate, and as it says, SPI can
accept copyright assignments if that fits the needs of OpenWRT.
Alternatively, the copyright holders could retain copyright and grant
SPI whatever legal permissions are necessary to enforce violations in
court, or to accomplish whatever other goals you are striving for. SPI's
status as a legal entity enables all of these possibilities.

> As for how it has been handled in practice, see [...]
> (again, why are those minutes still draft?) where (IMO) SPI ducked the
> issue of debian's website copyright because the board didn't prepare
> before the meeting. The problem remains to this day, AIUI, without
> even a clear description of what needs to happen to resolve it.

The issue with the Debian website copyright is rather different and is
much more complicated, because contacting all past contributors to that
website, getting some sort of legal document signed with them, and
convincing all current and future contributors to do the same would be a
huge task. I'm not saying this is impossible, but if I'm not mistaken,
Debian hasn't even decided how it wants to resolve the issue, so SPI
can't really do much. Additionally, these discussions happened back in
2005, and the SPI Board has become much more organized and better
prepared in the three years since then.

One last thing: I was a board member from 2004-2007 and am again since
late last month, and am speaking in that capacity, but only for myself
and not for SPI as a whole. MJ Ray is a very active contributing member,
though has never been on the SPI board, and is therefore speaking in his
individual capacity.

- Jimmy Kaplowitz
jimmy(at)spi-inc(dot)org

P.S. - MJ, those minutes are in fact no longer draft, but many of our
old minutes have not been updated to remove the text saying that they
are no longer draft. In actual fact, all minutes except the ones from
the most recent meeting have been approved.

Jimmy Kaplowitz wrote:
> The issue with the Debian website copyright is rather different and is
> much more complicated, because contacting all past contributors to that
> website, getting some sort of legal document signed with them, and
> convincing all current and future contributors to do the same would be a
> huge task.
Jimmy,

There is another way to go about it. Where copyrights are not explicitly
stated, the Debian project can decide to uniformly make clear its own
copyright upon its own web site, and make a /public notice /of its
intention to do so, along with a call for past contributors to oppose
and ask for their contribution to be removed before this takes place.

This can be done in finite time. This is only a clarification of a
copyright that always existed. Anyone, past, present, or future, who
asserts that a never-formally-stated copyright of a portion of the
project's web site exists that is not owned by the project is just
trying to obstruct the project.

There are individual documents such as the Debian Policy Manual that are
copyrighted by their developers, but it's a really short list of people.

Thanks

Bruce

(This is no longer relevant to OpenWRT, so I changed the subject line.)

On Tue, Mar 04, 2008 at 09:55:38AM -0800, Bruce Perens wrote:
> There is another way to go about it. Where copyrights are not explicitly
> stated, the Debian project can decide to uniformly make clear its own
> copyright upon its own web site, and make a /public notice /of its
> intention to do so, along with a call for past contributors to oppose
> and ask for their contribution to be removed before this takes place.
>
> This can be done in finite time. This is only a clarification of a
> copyright that always existed. Anyone, past, present, or future, who
> asserts that a never-formally-stated copyright of a portion of the
> project's web site exists that is not owned by the project is just
> trying to obstruct the project.

Based on my layman's understanding of copyright law, I am uneasy enough
with the assertion that this would allow free and clear transferral of
all copyright in the website to SPI that I would want SPI's lawyer to
confirm that it would work before any such transfer occurs. If you think
Debian should go this route, feel free to get this properly approved by
Debian (either via a GR or a DPL request that is publicized to Debian
and not overridden by a GR). In my role as an SPI board member, in
response to such a request from Debian I would definitely support asking
our lawyer about the validity of this, and if the result is affirmative
then I would support going ahead with it. (I haven't yet decided my
position on it in my separate role as a member of Debian.)

- Jimmy Kaplowitz
jimmy(at)spi-inc(dot)org

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On Tue, 4 Mar 2008 13:55:57 -0500
Jimmy Kaplowitz <jimmy(at)spi-inc(dot)org> wrote:

> (This is no longer relevant to OpenWRT, so I changed the subject
> line.)
>
> On Tue, Mar 04, 2008 at 09:55:38AM -0800, Bruce Perens wrote:
> > There is another way to go about it. Where copyrights are not
> > explicitly stated, the Debian project can decide to uniformly make
> > clear its own copyright upon its own web site, and make a /public
> > notice /of its intention to do so, along with a call for past
> > contributors to oppose and ask for their contribution to be removed
> > before this takes place.
> >
> > This can be done in finite time. This is only a clarification of a
> > copyright that always existed. Anyone, past, present, or future,
> > who asserts that a never-formally-stated copyright of a portion of
> > the project's web site exists that is not owned by the project is
> > just trying to obstruct the project.
>
> Based on my layman's understanding of copyright law, I am uneasy
> enough with the assertion that this would allow free and clear
> transferral of all copyright in the website to SPI that I would want

The limit of this discussion should be the definition of explicit
questions to ask our legal counsel about copyright rules.

We are not attorney's nor should we or anyone else from SPI pretend to
be. Let's get the rule from the law.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

- --
The PostgreSQL Company since 1997: http://www.commandprompt.com/
PostgreSQL Community Conference: http://www.postgresqlconference.org/
Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
PostgreSQL SPI Liaison | SPI Director | PostgreSQL political pundit

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I wrote:
>>> There is another way to go about it. Where copyrights are not
>>> explicitly stated, the Debian project can decide to uniformly make
>>> clear its own copyright upon its own web site, and make a /public
>>> notice /of its intention to do so, along with a call for past
>>> contributors to oppose and ask for their contribution to be removed
>>> before this takes place.
>>>
>>> This can be done in finite time. This is only a clarification of a
>>> copyright that always existed. Anyone, past, present, or future,
>>> who asserts that a never-formally-stated copyright of a portion of
>>> the project's web site exists that is not owned by the project is
>>> just trying to obstruct the project.
>>>
Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> The limit of this discussion should be the definition of explicit
> questions to ask our legal counsel about copyright rules.
So, can we please have SPI counsel opine on my theory as presented above?

Regarding the transfer of copyrights to SPI, the holding company concept
is the problem for Debian. Nobody would be so uneasy were the proposal
to transfer the copyrights to the Debian project as its own legal entity.

Thanks

Bruce

On Tue, Mar 04, 2008 at 11:36:02AM -0800, Bruce Perens wrote:
> So, can we please have SPI counsel opine on my theory as presented above?

Personally, given that it's far from certain that Debian would wish to
pursue your theory, I'd much rather wait until Debian requests SPI to
pursue it or determine its legal validity. I don't oppose it (at least
not as a SPI board member), but I'd rather reserve our lawyers' limited
resources for requests of an associated project instead of for
individual desires that may or may not be share by the project they
pertain to. As I said before, feel free to propose it to Debian.

> Regarding the transfer of copyrights to SPI, the holding company concept
> is the problem for Debian. Nobody would be so uneasy were the proposal
> to transfer the copyrights to the Debian project as its own legal entity.

If you think that Debian objects because SPI has other associated
projects (which I doubt is the reason), feel free to recommend to them
that they move the website copyright to a legal entity solely affiliated
with Debian. Under the current Debian Constitution, SPI is only one of
several entities that hold assets for Debian, and we don't pretend to
have a veto power on Debian holding assets elsewhere. IRS rules might
require that any recipient of SPI's copyright interest in the Debian
website be a 501(c)(3) entity with compatible purposes, but that'd be
the worst of it. My guess is that those Debian developers who object
want to retain their individual copyrights in the site, or don't want to
deal with one or more of paperwork, legalese, or US jurisdiction for
their contributions. However, you'd have to ask Debian to know for sure.

- Jimmy Kaplowitz
jimmy(at)spi-inc(dot)org

Jimmy Kaplowitz wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 04, 2008 at 11:36:02AM -0800, Bruce Perens wrote:
>
> I'd rather reserve our lawyers' limited
> resources for requests of an associated project instead of for
> individual desires that may or may not be share by the project they
> pertain to.
>
Just please confirm to me that you did not really have any competent
legal advice behind your original statement. That particular meme about
copyright changes requiring contact with every single developer is an
oft-repeated and IMO harmful and misinformed one in Open Source circles.
I don't like to see SPI or the DDs base policy on legal myths, but do
not otherwise have a reason to push this issue with the DDs.
> feel free to recommend to them that they move the website copyright to a legal entity solely affiliated with Debian.
My opinion is that the holding company concept never worked for Debian.
After 10 years there are still problems with DD participation in SPI and
even SPI folks still feel uneasy regarding SPI owning Debian stuff.

Bruce

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On Tue, 04 Mar 2008 13:03:32 -0800
Bruce Perens <bruce(at)perens(dot)com> wrote:

> Jimmy Kaplowitz wrote:
> > On Tue, Mar 04, 2008 at 11:36:02AM -0800, Bruce Perens wrote:
> >
> > I'd rather reserve our lawyers' limited
> > resources for requests of an associated project instead of for
> > individual desires that may or may not be share by the project they
> > pertain to.
> >
> Just please confirm to me that you did not really have any competent
> legal advice behind your original statement.

I believe his comment to the layman understanding is enough.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

- --
The PostgreSQL Company since 1997: http://www.commandprompt.com/
PostgreSQL Community Conference: http://www.postgresqlconference.org/
Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
PostgreSQL SPI Liaison | SPI Director | PostgreSQL political pundit

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Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> I believe his comment to the layman understanding is enough.
I'll accept that. I have published on this particular legal myth last
year at http://technocrat.net/d/2007/3/22/16651

Thanks

Bruce

On Tue, Mar 04, 2008 at 01:03:32PM -0800, Bruce Perens wrote:
> Just please confirm to me that you did not really have any competent
> legal advice behind your original statement. That particular meme about
> copyright changes requiring contact with every single developer is an
> oft-repeated and IMO harmful and misinformed one in Open Source circles.

As both Josh and I have pointed out, my original mail referred to a
"layman's understanding of copyright law" and never claimed to have
legal advice underlying it. My understanding is different from yours in
this regard, and given that neither of us is a lawyer, I would certainly
consult legal advice if I were going to take (or refrain from taking)
any action that turns on this issue. As of now, Debian is not asking SPI
to adopt your theory, and my inaction is based on lack of a request from
Debian rather than based on my understanding of the law. If you have no
reason to push this issue with the DDs, then in my role as an SPI
director I will consider it resolved for now until SPI hears that Debian
is interested in pursuing it.

> My opinion is that the holding company concept never worked for Debian.
> After 10 years there are still problems with DD participation in SPI and
> even SPI folks still feel uneasy regarding SPI owning Debian stuff.

I realize you have felt this way for a long time. However, given that
there is nothing compelling Debian to hold assets with SPI yet it
continues to do so, presumably Debian is at least comfortable enough
with the relationship that it chooses to continue it. At the direction
of Debian, SPI would certainly transfer those of Debian's assets which
it controls to a separate legal entity created with compatible purposes
and that has a 501(c)(3) tax exemption. Unless and until SPI receives
such a direction from Debian (again either resulting from a GR or from a
non-overridden DPL decision), I have to assume that your viewpoint is a
minority one that does not represent the overall wishes of Debian.

- Jimmy Kaplowitz
jimmy(at)spi-inc(dot)org

On Tue, Mar 04, 2008 at 01:23:05PM -0800, Bruce Perens wrote:
> I'll accept that. I have published on this particular legal myth last
> year at http://technocrat.net/d/2007/3/22/16651

Your article states your reasoning, which is substantially the same as
your first post to this thread. However, it doesn't cite any legal
authorities at all, whether case law, statutes, or secondary texts. Nor
does it show any evidence that Linus's modifications to his license were
legally valid for code that was not his own, or that changing the
prelude to the GPL2 in the main kernel license file has the effect you
imply it does. I'm not saying you're definitely wrong, but just that my
understanding does contradict yours, and that my understanding is based
on a serious effort to become an informed layman. If Debian does decide
to follow your theory or investigate its legal validity, I expect that
all SPI directors, including myself if I am on the board then, will be
willing to get the appropriate legal advice at that time.

- Jimmy Kaplowitz
jimmy(at)spi-inc(dot)org

(PS - Please only reply if you have more to add; this thread is getting
long enough already.)

Jimmy Kaplowitz wrote:
> However, it doesn't cite any legal authorities at all, whether case law, statutes, or secondary texts.
There's a 207 page report at
http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/orphan-report-full.pdf
But no new legislation resulting from it.
> Nor does it show any evidence that Linus's modifications to his license were legally valid for code that was not his own
In which case we can still license the entire kernel under GPL3. Either
Linus did not have a right to make the original change to remove the
"any later version" text, and we can use GPL3 on the kernel today, or he
does have the right to make another change to include similar text in
the future.

I agree, 'nuff said.

Thanks

Bruce

Jimmy Kaplowitz <jimmy(at)spi-inc(dot)org> wrote: [...]
> The issue with the Debian website copyright is rather different and is
> much more complicated, because contacting all past contributors to that
> website, getting some sort of legal document signed with them, and
> convincing all current and future contributors to do the same would be a
> huge task.

First off, I'm not sure that this is so different, because OpenWRT may
be expecting ease of bugfixing licensing to be one of the benefits of
copyright centralisation.

Secondly, is it necessary to contact all past contributors, what legal
document would need to be signed by them and all current and future
contributors? I think the debian contributors interested in this
realise it's a potentially huge task, but SPI hasn't given an explicit
answer about what we can do to resolve it AFAIK. Yes, we can go off
at half-cock, based on some incorrect layman understanding, do a huge
task and then still find we've not fixed the bug, but I'd rather not,
OK?

> I'm not saying this is impossible, but if I'm not mistaken,
> Debian hasn't even decided how it wants to resolve the issue, so SPI
> can't really do much.

SPI has the lawyers. SPI needs to help find out what the debian
project's options for resolving this issue, please!

Is that really the problem? SPI wants more direction from the debian
project still? Unless I'm much mistaken, those 2005 meetings had the
then-DPL present. If SPI board wanted more official Debian direction,
it could have been obtained almost immediately, but it seemed like
SPI's board was happy to allow a debian contributor to ask its lawyer.
Did that ever happen? I can't tell: I didn't find the outcome
recorded anywhere. The loop never closed, did it?

> Additionally, these discussions happened back in
> 2005, and the SPI Board has become much more organized and better
> prepared in the three years since then.

Agreed. Also, past performance is not necessarily an indication of
future returns and so on, but it's one of the few predictors that we
have and the promises and positions on these topics have not changed
in the meantime.

> [...] MJ Ray is a very active contributing member,
> though has never been on the SPI board, and is therefore speaking in his
> individual capacity.

Yeah, and He Is Not A Lawyer either.

Please do *not* import bad habits of some idiots on debian lists to
this mailing list. Unless stated otherwise, even if they are posting
with @debian or @spi-inc, all posts are made in a personal capacity.
In my case, I usually have signature links to some home page(s) which
often include that info, unlike several other posters.

[...]
> P.S. - MJ, those minutes are in fact no longer draft, but many of our
> old minutes have not been updated to remove the text saying that they
> are no longer draft. In actual fact, all minutes except the ones from
> the most recent meeting have been approved.

Can someone do a multi-page search-and-replace, please? (From memory,
worst case, with plone/zope, mount it with curlftpfs and use sed.)

Regards,
--
MJ Ray http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html tel:+44-844-4437-237 -
Webmaster-developer, statistician, sysadmin, online shop builder,
consumer and workers co-operative member http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ -
Writing on koha, debian, sat TV, Kewstoke http://mjr.towers.org.uk/

"Joshua D. Drake" <jd(at)commandprompt(dot)com> wrote: [...]
> The limit of this discussion should be the definition of explicit
> questions to ask our legal counsel about copyright rules.
>
> We are not attorney's nor should we or anyone else from SPI pretend to
> be. Let's get the rule from the law.

*applause* As a starting point, I suggest "How can www.debian.org be
relicensed? Please give two options, if possible."

Thanks,
--
MJ Ray http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html tel:+44-844-4437-237 -
Webmaster-developer, statistician, sysadmin, online shop builder,
consumer and workers co-operative member http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ -
Writing on koha, debian, sat TV, Kewstoke http://mjr.towers.org.uk/

On Wed, Mar 05, 2008 at 10:23:27AM +0000, MJ Ray wrote:
> First off, I'm not sure that this is so different, because OpenWRT may
> be expecting ease of bugfixing licensing to be one of the benefits of
> copyright centralisation.

I will try to coordinate with OpenWRT in a real-time conversation to
find out more of what they want, and will ask our lawyers any questions
necessary to resolve the issue of whether SPI would be suitable for
them.

> Secondly, is it necessary to contact all past contributors, what legal
> document would need to be signed by them and all current and future
> contributors? I think the debian contributors interested in this
> realise it's a potentially huge task, but SPI hasn't given an explicit
> answer about what we can do to resolve it AFAIK. Yes, we can go off
> at half-cock, based on some incorrect layman understanding, do a huge
> task and then still find we've not fixed the bug, but I'd rather not,
> OK?
>
> > I'm not saying this is impossible, but if I'm not mistaken,
> > Debian hasn't even decided how it wants to resolve the issue, so SPI
> > can't really do much.
>
> SPI has the lawyers. SPI needs to help find out what the debian
> project's options for resolving this issue, please!
>
> Is that really the problem? SPI wants more direction from the debian
> project still?

I will ping Sam Hocevar and see what he thinks the status and priority
of this is for him and for Debian, and will also continue catching up on
-board archives since the end of my previous board term to see if there
has been discussion since then with our lawyers.

- Jimmy Kaplowitz
jimmy(at)spi-inc(dot)org

Bruce Perens writes ("Re: Copyright issues re Debian website"):
> There's a 207 page report at
> http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/orphan-report-full.pdf

This clearly describes the problem. I have read the Executive Summary
and it seems from reading it that Jimmy is right and you are wrong.

> But no new legislation resulting from it.

Yes! It describes a problem very similar that that of the Debian
website copyright (we don't know exactly who the copyright holders
are, can't contact them, and wish to make what would be an infringing
use). And then it concludes that it is not adequately addressed.

See for example pdf page 20, final paragraph, "However, in
practice, ..." which enumerates some other options for people in our
position but fails to mention anything even slightly resembling your
proposed approach.

Indeed the "search for copyright holders" approach forms part of the
"legislative solutions" which the document recommends but which have
not been enacted.

Ian.

Ian Jackson wrote:
> It describes a problem very similar that that of the Debian
> website copyright (we don't know exactly who the copyright holders
> are, can't contact them, and wish to make what would be an infringing
> use).
It would indeed be improper to use the procedure that I outlined in the
case of the conventional orphan copyright holder, Open Source projects
are different because of the collective nature of the work. The process
I outlined was suggested some years ago by Larry Rosen, who is an attorney.

Thanks

Bruce

Bruce,

On Thu, Mar 06, 2008 at 07:55:37AM -0800, Bruce Perens wrote:
> Ian Jackson wrote:
> > It describes a problem very similar that that of the Debian
> > website copyright (we don't know exactly who the copyright holders
> > are, can't contact them, and wish to make what would be an infringing
> > use).
> It would indeed be improper to use the procedure that I outlined in the
> case of the conventional orphan copyright holder, Open Source projects
> are different because of the collective nature of the work. The process
> I outlined was suggested some years ago by Larry Rosen, who is an attorney.

At least with regard to relicensing of open source projects, Sun's
lawyers seem to have come to the same conclusion as I did regarding the
need to contact every single contributor and get everyone to agree:

"Consolidated copyright of code also allows for the possibility of
relicensing the whole code base should that become desirable. When
starting an open source project, the choice of license is intended to be
permanent, but the experience of the past few years is that the ability
to relicense a project is a useful tool in meeting challenges to free
and open source software (and especially challenges from the proprietary
software market), and not having that flexibility may be a drawback.
Without aggregated copyright, every single contributor must be contacted
and unanimity reached in order to relicense a code base, or parts of the
code must be reimplemented. This is true for all but the most
permissively-licensed open source projects."
- http://www.sun.com/software/opensource/contributor_agreement.jsp

This page is a FAQ about a legal IP agreement offered by Sun, so
presumably it was written by their lawyers as generally applicable legal
information. Also, based on
http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/relicensing-faq.html the Mozilla project
(which has always had lawyers involved given how it grew out of Netscape
and drafted its own software license) seemed to come to the same
conclusion during their relicensing process. I still won't claim to be a
lawyer or to be proferring specific legal advice as applied to a
particular set of facts and circumstances, but this confirms what every
lawyer-written source and almost all other sources has said as far as
I've seen.

- Jimmy Kaplowitz
jimmy(at)spi-inc(dot)org

Jimmy Kaplowitz wrote:
> "Consolidated copyright of code also allows for the possibility of
> relicensing the whole code base should that become desirable.
It is definitely easier to relicense a program when you own the entire
copyright, because you don't have to give anyone notice. But nothing
there says it's the only possible method.

Thanks

Bruce

On Fri, Mar 07, 2008 at 09:58:55AM -0800, Bruce Perens wrote:
> Jimmy Kaplowitz wrote:
> >"Consolidated copyright of code also allows for the possibility of
> >relicensing the whole code base should that become desirable.
> It is definitely easier to relicense a program when you own the entire
> copyright, because you don't have to give anyone notice. But nothing
> there says it's the only possible method.

It doesn't say that consolidated copyright is the only method, true.
But, the full bit of text I quoted does say that you need the unanimous
agreement of every single contributor [i.e. copyright holder] if the
copyright is not owned by one entity. Here's the relevant bit (all-caps
words are my emphasis):

"Without aggregated copyright, EVERY SINGLE CONTRIBUTOR must be
contacted AND UNANIMITY REACHED in order to relicense a code base, or
parts of the code must be reimplemented. This is true for all but the
most permissively-licensed open source projects."

Please quote less selectively and read more closely in the future.

- Jimmy Kaplowitz
jimmy(at)spi-inc(dot)org

Jimmy Kaplowitz wrote:
> But, the full bit of text I quoted does say that you need the unanimous
> agreement of every single contributor
Yes. Sun reiterates the same simplistic view of the issue that has been
repeated elsewhere.

If this were true, then a collective work of 1000 copyright holders
would have a problem relicensing if they could just not find ONE person.
That person may have died intestate, may have left the copyright in the
hands of a state government or some other holder who has no idea that
the copyright exists and has no reasonable means to exercise their
rights as copyright holder.

And it's entirely absurd that the other 999 producers of a collective
work would be permanently impeded by this fact. IMO, a reasonable
process to get around this exists and /can be used,/ but is not
currently backed up by an affirmative statement in law or case law. This
isn't unusual. There is a lot of stuff that we do that has no
affirmative statement in law behind it, but goes unchallenged. For
example, there is no affirmative statement in the law that allows an
author to deliberately place a work in the public domain.

Thanks

Bruce

Bruce Perens writes ("Re: Copyright issues re Debian website"):
> And it's entirely absurd that the other 999 producers of a collective
> work would be permanently impeded by this fact.

You seem to be under the misapprehension that there is some principle
that says that the law is not absurd.

There is no need to CC me on these discussions, nor I suspect anyone
else. We're all on the list, so please reply just there.

Ian.

Ian Jackson wrote:
> You seem to be under the misapprehension that there is some principle that says that the law is not absurd.
You are at the mercy of the judge regarding whether case law will be
absurd or not. Generally they understand the need not to create
absurdness in case law. They aren't always successful, and they do not
always agree with you what is or is not absurd.

Thanks

Bruce

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On Fri, 7 Mar 2008 18:24:40 +0000
Ian Jackson <ijackson(at)chiark(dot)greenend(dot)org(dot)uk> wrote:

> Bruce Perens writes ("Re: Copyright issues re Debian website"):
> > And it's entirely absurd that the other 999 producers of a
> > collective work would be permanently impeded by this fact.
>
> You seem to be under the misapprehension that there is some principle
> that says that the law is not absurd.

Aren't most laws absurd?

Joshua D. Drake

- --
The PostgreSQL Company since 1997: http://www.commandprompt.com/
PostgreSQL Community Conference: http://www.postgresqlconference.org/
Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
PostgreSQL SPI Liaison | SPI Director | PostgreSQL political pundit

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Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> Aren't most laws absurd?
It depends on how severe your spectrum disorder is.

Dear colleagues,

On Fri, Mar 07, 2008 at 10:20:08AM -0800, Bruce Perens wrote:

> And it's entirely absurd that the other 999 producers of a collective
> work would be permanently impeded by this fact. IMO, a reasonable
> process to get around this exists and /can be used,/ but is not
> currently backed up by an affirmative statement in law or case law.

I'm getting more than a little tired of reading idle speculation on what is
or is not in the law from people (ok, one person, really) who have never, as
far as I am led to believe, been called to the bar. I think Mr Perens has
already been invited to ask formally for legal advice, if he is in a
position to do so. I don't see how aimless speculation by a bunch of
non-lawyers is going to get us anywhere, though.

Put this another way: if you overheard lawyers pontificating on what the
innards of a C program might or might not do, you'd be within your rights to
roll your eyes. I'm not sure why the case of geeks discussing the law that
way is any different.

A

Bruce Perens wrote:
> Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> > Aren't most laws absurd?
> It depends on how severe your spectrum disorder is.

And on your jurisdiction.

--
Alvaro Herrera http://www.advogato.org/person/alvherre
"Estoy de acuerdo contigo en que la verdad absoluta no existe...
El problema es que la mentira sí existe y tu estás mintiendo" (G. Lama)

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On Fri, 7 Mar 2008 15:45:26 -0300
Alvaro Herrera <alvherre(at)alvh(dot)no-ip(dot)org> wrote:

> Bruce Perens wrote:
> > Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> > > Aren't most laws absurd?
> > It depends on how severe your spectrum disorder is.
>
> And on your jurisdiction.

I assure you that I can find an significant majority of absurdity
regardless of the jurisdiction.

Joshua D. Drake

- --
The PostgreSQL Company since 1997: http://www.commandprompt.com/
PostgreSQL Community Conference: http://www.postgresqlconference.org/
Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
PostgreSQL SPI Liaison | SPI Director | PostgreSQL political pundit

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Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> I assure you that I can find an significant majority of absurdity regardless of the jurisdiction.
Laws are just the structures we put together so that we can live with
each other. At least in a democracy. I'd imagine that someone who
/really /thought that a /majority /were absurd might have difficulty
living with others. That's why I made the spectrum disorder crack. But
we are getting far from the mission of this list.

Bruce

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On Fri, 07 Mar 2008 10:58:17 -0800
Bruce Perens <bruce(at)perens(dot)com> wrote:

> Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> > I assure you that I can find an significant majority of absurdity
> > regardless of the jurisdiction.
> Laws are just the structures we put together so that we can live with
> each other. At least in a democracy. I'd imagine that someone who
> /really /thought that a /majority /were absurd might have difficulty
> living with others.

In Oregon it is illegal:

To have an erection in public. Please arrest every 14 year old boy.
To paint a rabbit green. Not just any color, but green.
To make a u-turn.
To pump your own gas.

Joshua D. Drake

- --
The PostgreSQL Company since 1997: http://www.commandprompt.com/
PostgreSQL Community Conference: http://www.postgresqlconference.org/
Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
PostgreSQL SPI Liaison | SPI Director | PostgreSQL political pundit

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On Fri, Mar 07, 2008 at 10:58:17AM -0800, Bruce Perens wrote:
> Joshua D. Drake wrote:
>> I assure you that I can find an significant majority of absurdity
>> regardless of the jurisdiction.
> Laws are just the structures we put together so that we can live with each
> other. At least in a democracy. I'd imagine that someone who /really
> /thought that a /majority /were absurd might have difficulty living with
> others. That's why I made the spectrum disorder crack. But we are getting
> far from the mission of this list.

Yes, but most of us don't live in a democracy. The US for example is
republican (small 'r', not big 'R') form of government, where elected
officials are subject to legalized bribery in the from (for example)
campaign contributions from lobbyists from the Disney corporation to
make sure that Micky Mouse never falls into the Public Domain. And I
assure you, I find that *most* absurd; in fact, given the vast amount
of lobbying that have perpetrated laws like the DMCA on us, it's more
likely that not that laws regarding copyright, patents, and trade
secret are more absurd that we would like.

So to presumptively say that of *course* the legal forms of
reassigning copyright would make sense and not be absurd seems to be
hopelessly niave. It's safer to assume that anything involving
intellectual property does not conform to common sense.

- Ted

On Fri, Mar 07, 2008 at 10:20:08AM -0800, Bruce Perens wrote:
> Jimmy Kaplowitz wrote:
>> But, the full bit of text I quoted does say that you need the unanimous
>> agreement of every single contributor
> Yes. Sun reiterates the same simplistic view of the issue that has been
> repeated elsewhere.
>
> If this were true, then a collective work of 1000 copyright holders
> would have a problem relicensing if they could just not find ONE person.
> That person may have died intestate, may have left the copyright in the
> hands of a state government or some other holder who has no idea that
> the copyright exists and has no reasonable means to exercise their
> rights as copyright holder.
>
> And it's entirely absurd that the other 999 producers of a collective
> work would be permanently impeded by this fact. IMO, a reasonable
> process to get around this exists and /can be used,/ but is not
> currently backed up by an affirmative statement in law or case law. This
> isn't unusual. There is a lot of stuff that we do that has no
> affirmative statement in law behind it, but goes unchallenged. For
> example, there is no affirmative statement in the law that allows an
> author to deliberately place a work in the public domain.

Is your aim to find some moral reason backing your position or doing it
in a way that is for sure legal?

Also don't forget that especially in the open source area judges in
different countries might come to different decisions based on their
local laws.

This is like e.g. the grey legal area whether binary-only Linux kernel
modules are legal at all. AFAIK noone has yet tested this at all at
court. And everyone might get away unchallenged it. But I hope everyone
is aware that although it might be considered immorally the first legal
battle might e.g. be some kernel developer from <country> suing the
admin of ftp.<contry>.debian.org due to the contents of [1] based on the
copyright law in <country>. [2]

No matter what one might consider "entirely absurd" even absurd
legislation is sometimes enforced.

100% legal safety might not always be possible, but you should be aware
which risks you take, whom else you endanger of getting lawsuits, and
whether it's worth it.

> Thanks
>
> Bruce

cu
Adrian

[1] ftp://ftp.<country>.debian.org/debian/pool/non-free/n/
[2] Why would (s)he do this?
Like e.g. Caldera turning into SCO and a Linux kernel developer
fired by Novell yesterday being hired by Microsoft tomorrow life
changes fast, so even someone without a reason today might find one
tomorrow.

--

"Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
"Only a promise," Lao Er said.
Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed

All,

When did spi-general become "legal-wanker-discuss(at)spi-inc(dot)org"?

Might I suggest that idle legal speculation, having little or nothing to do
with SPI business, be taken to another mailing list, please?

--
--Josh

Josh Berkus
Board Member
Software in the Public Interest, Inc.
josh(at)spi-inc(dot)org

Josh Berkus <josh(at)postgresql(dot)org> wrote:
> When did spi-general become "legal-wanker-discuss(at)spi-inc(dot)org"?
>
> Might I suggest that idle legal speculation, having little or nothing to do
> with SPI business, be taken to another mailing list, please?

Right. And might I suggest that SPI get off its collective backside
and ask its legal advisers whether tracking down every contributor and
relicensing or replacing every contribution to the debian web site is
1/ sufficient and 2/ necessary, instead of legal-wanker-discussing?
That advice has a lot to do with SPI business and even projects that
do centralise most copyrights sometimes forget things like their
website, so I expect it would apply to other SPI projects too.

Sun and the Mozilla corporations (and probably FSF and SFLC) have
significant interests in promoting copyright extraction, which SPI
doesn't have. As I've written on other topics, I'd much rather the
debian project took SPI's advice rather than Sun's.

Going back to something mentioned the original topic: what contracts
did SPI sign for the PostgreSQL Conference and have they not appeared
on public record just because they're too recent, or did I miss them,
or what?

Regards,
--
MJ Ray http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html tel:+44-844-4437-237 -
Webmaster-developer, statistician, sysadmin, online shop builder,
consumer and workers co-operative member http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ -
Writing on koha, debian, sat TV, Kewstoke http://mjr.towers.org.uk/

On Sun, Mar 09, 2008 at 12:26:45PM +0000, MJ Ray wrote:
> Josh Berkus <josh(at)postgresql(dot)org> wrote:
> > When did spi-general become "legal-wanker-discuss(at)spi-inc(dot)org"?
> > Might I suggest that idle legal speculation, having little or nothing to do
> > with SPI business, be taken to another mailing list, please?
> Right. And might I suggest that SPI get off its collective backside
> and ask its legal advisers whether tracking down every contributor

I don't think there's ever been a request from the Debian liaison for
SPI to do that, has there? If there has, it should be the liaison (ie,
the DPL) chasing it up with the board, not individual Debian developers
or SPI members. If there hasn't, individual members should be chasing
it up with the DPL, who's responsible for working out if it's important
enough for Debian to spend SPI's resources on.

Cheers,
aj

MJ,

> Going back to something mentioned the original topic: what contracts
> did SPI sign for the PostgreSQL Conference and have they not appeared
> on public record just because they're too recent, or did I miss them,
> or what?

I'd suggest that you start a new thread for this. The rest of the
PostgreSQL people stopped reading the "Copyright issues" thread several
days ago.

--
--Josh

Josh Berkus
Board Member
Software in the Public Interest, Inc.
josh(at)spi-inc(dot)org

Anthony Towns wrote:
> I don't think there's ever been a request from the Debian liaison for
> SPI to do that, has there? If there has, it should be the liaison (ie,
> the DPL) chasing it up with the board, not individual Debian developers
> or SPI members. If there hasn't, individual members should be chasing
> it up with the DPL, who's responsible for working out if it's important
> enough for Debian to spend SPI's resources on.
Anthony,

I would find it a lot easier to believe that SPI and Debian's legal
resources were precious if there was the slightest sign that any use was
being made of them. I am running this question past outside counsel,
which is pretty easy, since there is lots of volunteer counsel
available. I can name one purpose-built non-profit and three college
legal clinics that are available to help, and two law firms that want to
make a reputation in Open Source.

I a,m afraid that the most truthful parts of the answers that MJ and I
heard were 1) we're not going to listen if you go outside of the
hierarchy and 2) we're not interested in pursuing new ideas.

Bruce

On Mon, 10 Mar 2008 19:28:50 -0700
Bruce Perens <bruce(at)perens(dot)com> wrote:

> Anthony Towns wrote:
> > I don't think there's ever been a request from the Debian liaison
> > for SPI to do that, has there? If there has, it should be the
> > liaison (ie, the DPL) chasing it up with the board, not individual
> > Debian developers or SPI members. If there hasn't, individual
> > members should be chasing it up with the DPL, who's responsible for
> > working out if it's important enough for Debian to spend SPI's
> > resources on.
> Anthony,
>
> I would find it a lot easier to believe that SPI and Debian's legal
> resources were precious if there was the slightest sign that any use
> was being made of them.

All resources are precious. It is just a matter of Degree. SPI has
legal resources and we will make use of them as we need to. Of interest
here is that I actually don't agree with Anthony. If a contributing
member to SPI would like a legal question answered I think SPI has a
duty to get that question answered.

However, I do not think we should do this lightly as resource are
precious. In this case, as the question is for the Debian project
explicitly, I believe it should be the DPL that makes the request.

I would ask that you, if you feel that strongly about it, take up your
cause with Debian. Should Debian chose to engage SPI's legal services
for such a mission, then we shall follow through diligently.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake
SPI Director

--
The PostgreSQL Company since 1997: http://www.commandprompt.com/
PostgreSQL Community Conference: http://www.postgresqlconference.org/
Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
PostgreSQL SPI Liaison | SPI Director | PostgreSQL political pundit

Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> I would ask that you, if you feel that strongly about it, take up your cause with Debian.
As I am working on this outside of SPI at the moment. I might end up
having something for MJ to take up with Debian.

Bruce

Bruce Perens <bruce(at)perens(dot)com> wrote:
> Anthony Towns wrote:
> > I don't think there's ever been a request from the Debian liaison for
> > SPI to do that, has there?

Then-DPL Branden Robinson was part of the last SPI board to consider
the issue and refer it to debian-www, who seemed broadly to coalesce
around a BSD-style licence as default with some contributors using the
GPL for their work.

Was it a request from the Debian liaison? Apart from a few occasions,
Branden Robinson didn't seem to treat his SPI Board and DPL seats as
distinct, which seems sensible to me. Why split hairs about that now?

> > If there has, it should be the liaison (ie,
> > the DPL) chasing it up with the board, not individual Debian developers
> > or SPI members. [...]

The DPL after Branden Robinson seemed not to include it on his list of
SPI issues, but I'm not speculating on why. I've started asking
whether the next DPL will chase it.
http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2008/03/msg00065.html

Anyway, all SPI members "have the right and responsibility of
overseeing the board members, officers, and committees and ensuring
that they operate in accordance with the goals and principles of the
organization" so I believe individual members checking whether SPI has
operated on this is valid. All this you-must-be-wearing-an-official-
hat-to-even-ask is hierarchical nonsense to me. If there's simply
unclarity, stick asking the DPL for instruction on the next agenda.
No need to turn it into Asterix's Permit A38.
http://www.commitment.es/mba2008/2006/10/19/the-twelve-tasks-of-as-patxi-x/

wiki.debian.org, mentioned in past SPI discussion as a way to get
debian web copyright right next time, has a similar problem in
http://bugs.debian.org/385797 which could maybe re-use any best
practice developed for the main web site.

[...]
> I a,m afraid that the most truthful parts of the answers that MJ and I
> heard were 1) we're not going to listen if you go outside of the
> hierarchy [...]

Amen just to that bit. It's rather disappointing when seemingly
simple requests like for "what needs to happen to resolve
[www.debian's copyright bugs]" or "Will the applications of board
candidates be published?" get bogged down in these bureaucratic
blockages. Happily, among the board at the moment, Jimmy Kaplowitz
seems nearly always a do-er and Joerg Jaspert is usually a do-er,
which cancels out the effect on my happiness of the silly obstructions
from Josh Berkus and Joshua D. Drake this month IMO.

Regards,
--
MJ Ray http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html tel:+44-844-4437-237 -
Webmaster-developer, statistician, sysadmin, online shop builder,
consumer and workers co-operative member http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ -
Writing on koha, debian, sat TV, Kewstoke http://mjr.towers.org.uk/

I'm going to chime in to support Bruce here.

Everyone, including Bruce, *agrees* that it is *best* and *safest* to
get explicit assignments or explicit relicense permission. All the
official legal advice being tossed about is saying exactly that. But
none of it has said that, in a pinch, when that isn't feasible, you
can't do a relicense on content contributed to a site. In fact, as
far as I can tell, companies do that all the time, eg with comments on
blogs and such.

Within the free <stuff> world, I believe that wikipedia did such a
copyright change, from GFDL+cover_text to plain GFDL. I do not recall
any attempt to obtain explicit permission from all contributors. I
would imagine wikipedia has ready access to legal council.

I'd futher note that, with products of "joint authorship", like a
journal paper with multiple authors, I've been informed that license
to publish can be granted by *one* of the authors alone. This is
common in academia, which is how I know about it. (If one author does
so without consulting the others he'd might be considered a "jerk",
but that's another matter.)

So it doesn't seem so clear to me that Bruce is wrong about this.

Just sayin',

--Barak.
--
Barak A. Pearlmutter
Hamilton Institute & Dept Comp Sci, NUI Maynooth, Co. Kildare, Ireland
http://www.bcl.hamilton.ie/~barak/

MJ,

> Happily, among the board at the moment, Jimmy Kaplowitz
> seems nearly always a do-er and Joerg Jaspert is usually a do-er,
> which cancels out the effect on my happiness of the silly obstructions
> from Josh Berkus and Joshua D. Drake this month IMO.

You persist in your belief that SPI-general should be an extension of
the Debian mailing lists. Those of us who are not part of the Debian
project don't agree.

--Josh Berkus

On Tue, 11 Mar 2008 19:21:37 -0700
Josh Berkus <josh(at)postgresql(dot)org> wrote:

> MJ,
>
> > Happily, among the board at the moment, Jimmy Kaplowitz
> > seems nearly always a do-er and Joerg Jaspert is usually a do-er,
> > which cancels out the effect on my happiness of the silly
> > obstructions from Josh Berkus and Joshua D. Drake this month IMO.
>

I let my record stand on its own.

> You persist in your belief that SPI-general should be an extension of
> the Debian mailing lists. Those of us who are not part of the Debian
> project don't agree.
>

Josh is kinder than I. It is a crock. Please take your Debian requests
to the Debian list. Should Debian require the services of SPI I am sure
that the Debian DPL will ask and at that point I am doubly confident
that SPI will comply.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

> --Josh Berkus
>
> _______________________________________________
> Spi-general mailing list
> Spi-general(at)lists(dot)spi-inc(dot)org
> http://lists.spi-inc.org/listinfo/spi-general

--
The PostgreSQL Company since 1997: http://www.commandprompt.com/
PostgreSQL Community Conference: http://www.postgresqlconference.org/
Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
PostgreSQL SPI Liaison | SPI Director | PostgreSQL political pundit

Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> Please take your Debian requests to the Debian list. Should Debian require the services of SPI I am sure that the Debian DPL will ask and at that point I am doubly confident that SPI will comply.
Ugh. I think the problem here is that SPI has any mission _other_ than
serving Debian. I think it would have worked out to be more fair to
everyone had Command Prompt Inc. established its own foundation for
Postgres.

On Tue, 11 Mar 2008 20:34:15 -0700
Bruce Perens <bruce(at)perens(dot)com> wrote:

> Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> > Please take your Debian requests to the Debian list. Should Debian
> > require the services of SPI I am sure that the Debian DPL will ask
> > and at that point I am doubly confident that SPI will comply.
> Ugh. I think the problem here is that SPI has any mission _other_
> than serving Debian. I think it would have worked out to be more fair
> to everyone had Command Prompt Inc. established its own foundation
> for Postgres.

Not for the rest of PostgreSQL I assure you. Command Prompt is just one
player in a field of dozens. Command Prompt also does not dictate in
any way how the PostgreSQL community operates. We serve at the
grace of the community. I have to admit that this is one of
your more nonsensical posts.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

--
The PostgreSQL Company since 1997: http://www.commandprompt.com/
PostgreSQL Community Conference: http://www.postgresqlconference.org/
Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
PostgreSQL SPI Liaison | SPI Director | PostgreSQL political pundit

Hi.

> In fact, as far as I can tell, companies do that all the time, eg with
> comments on blogs and such.

Companies and other "free <stuff> world" projects doing it does not mean
that it's allowed for each and everyone. IMO it's generally a bad habit to
fall back to "they do it, so why shouldn't I do it, too".

The bottom line of the whole discussion was that Debian, should it be
interested as a whole in solving this question, should ask for legal
counsel via SPI. I think this is advise is correct - a lawyer commenting
on these questions is much more reliable than hundreds of laymens doing
wild guesswork.

</my_0.02EUR>

Bye, Mike

Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> Not for the rest of PostgreSQL I assure you. Command Prompt is just one
> player in a field of dozens. Command Prompt also does not dictate in
> any way how the PostgreSQL community operates. We serve at the
> grace of the community. I have to admit that this is one of
> your more nonsensical posts.
I'm sorry that I was not making sense. The statement you made to MJ was
not one I am used to seeing from an SPI board member.

It's pretty clear that there are now two camps that are not particularly
interested in each other's project, which hasn't really been the case
with SPI until recently.

SPI has had various people who had a financial interest in Debian on the
board. I owned about 8% of Progeny, and various Progeny employees were
on the board, but we weren't "The Debian Company".

And I am not entirely comfortable with this. Sorry. It's sincerely how I
feel.

Bruce

"Joshua D. Drake" <jd(at)commandprompt(dot)com> wrote:
> Josh Berkus <josh(at)postgresql(dot)org> wrote:
> > You persist in your belief that SPI-general should be an extension of
> > the Debian mailing lists. Those of us who are not part of the Debian
> > project don't agree.
>
> Josh is kinder than I. It is a crock. Please take your Debian requests
> to the Debian list. Should Debian require the services of SPI I am sure
> that the Debian DPL will ask and at that point I am doubly confident
> that SPI will comply.

So it seems the previous time(s) the Debian Project Leader was
involved with SPI's board discussing this might as well have not
happened, because we need to go through the whole tedious procedure
again, to get SPI to pick up a task it referred away. Yippee(!)
Apparently even a simple information question won't be answered unless
it's posted to a new thread. Double yippee(!) We love setting out the
hoops for jumping...

Anyway, even before the above, I started trying to reopen the www
relicensing discussion in debian, during the DPL election, at
http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2008/03/msg00065.html
because it seems pretty clear some people won't be happy without DPL
action of some sort on this.

But does this saga inform about SPI's ability to manage copyright?

Is www.debian's limbo solely due to debian project mismanagement, or
should SPI ask after tasks that are referred away by its board?

Actually, is SPI using any sort of task tracker? Is it public?

Aside: I'm happy that other projects are supported by SPI. I'm
currently a contributor to three of them and user of at least three
more, including PostgreSQL which manages the master user databases at
some of the ISPs I support commercially. I wish we had more liberal
PostgreSQL-related people on the SPI board, though. [Insert your own
non-offensive joke about stored procedures and the behaviour of the
two PostgreSQL-related SPI current and former board members here.]

Regards,
--
MJ Ray http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html tel:+44-844-4437-237 -
Webmaster-developer, statistician, sysadmin, online shop builder,
consumer and workers co-operative member http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ -
Writing on koha, debian, sat TV, Kewstoke http://mjr.towers.org.uk/

Bruce Perens writes ("Re: are we being honest about legal resources?"):
> It's pretty clear that there are now two camps that are not particularly
> interested in each other's project, which hasn't really been the case
> with SPI until recently.

This is complete nonsense. Just because everyone disagrees with you
and thinks you're a loose cannon, doesn't mean they dislike Debian.

Although if you carry on like this they'll start to. For the record:
MJ Ray and Bruce Perens are not good representatives of Debian.
Please don't hold their behaviour against us.

Ian.
(Please do not CC me on replies. I'm on the list.)

On Wed, Mar 12, 2008 at 12:57:27PM +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Bruce Perens writes ("Re: are we being honest about legal resources?"):
> > It's pretty clear that there are now two camps that are not particularly
> > interested in each other's project, which hasn't really been the case
> > with SPI until recently.
>
> This is complete nonsense. Just because everyone disagrees with you
> and thinks you're a loose cannon, doesn't mean they dislike Debian.
>
> Although if you carry on like this they'll start to. For the record:
> MJ Ray and Bruce Perens are not good representatives of Debian.
> Please don't hold their behaviour against us.

And What about me ? Face it, this kind of calumny and diffamation of
those you disagree with is not going to give debian a good image, it
would be much more helpful if debian learned finally to be able to speak
between itself, and not always take the biggest gun available to attack
those who don't agree with the party line. But then, since debian has to
resort on censorship in order to silence its dissidents, what should i
expect, ...

Sadly,

Sven Luther

On Wed, Mar 12, 2008 at 09:15:10AM +0000, MJ Ray wrote:
> So it seems the previous time(s) the Debian Project Leader was
> involved with SPI's board discussing this might as well have not
> happened, because we need to go through the whole tedious procedure
> again, to get SPI to pick up a task it referred away. Yippee(!)
> Apparently even a simple information question won't be answered unless
> it's posted to a new thread. Double yippee(!) We love setting out the
> hoops for jumping...

> Anyway, even before the above, I started trying to reopen the www
> relicensing discussion in debian, during the DPL election, at
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2008/03/msg00065.html
> because it seems pretty clear some people won't be happy without DPL
> action of some sort on this.

Looking at the Debian bug reports, one of the things which I'm
confused about is whether Debian actually cares about this officially.
Remember, debian-legal has no real power or official standing. It's
just a bunch of wankers, most of which are lay people, who love to
spend endless and vast amount of time debating related to copyright
law. To me, debian-legal and debian-vote's "last post wins" e-mail
debate culture is prime exhibit #1 in Debian's overall dysfunction,
but that's just my personal opinion --- but it's why I fled those
lists screaming a long time ago. I have better things to do with my
time.

People from the Debian ftpmasters and Debian www team are delegated by
the DPL to have powers to act on behalf of Debian, and they may take
the reasoning hashed out debian-legal if they so choose --- but they
don't have to, and it is ultimately up to them whether or not to take
action. Looking at the bug reports in question, I can't tell whether
or not anyone official at Debian has made the determination that this
is worth being a priority project --- and if I, a Debian Developer,
can't figure this out, how on earth is the anyone on the SPI board who
is not associated with the Debian project have any chance on Earth of
figuring this out?

So don't think asking the DPL to get involved is unreasonable. In
fact, it is the only reasonable thing to do so.

- Ted

> MJ Ray http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html tel:+44-844-4437-237 -
> Webmaster-developer, statistician, sysadmin, online shop builder,
> consumer and workers co-operative member http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ -
> Writing on koha, debian, sat TV, Kewstoke http://mjr.towers.org.uk/

Linux Foundation Fellow and Chief Platform Architect, ext4 and
e2fsprogs author/maintainer, First North American Kernel Developer

Ian Jackson <ijackson(at)chiark(dot)greenend(dot)org(dot)uk> wrote: [...]
> Although if you carry on like this they'll start to. For the record:
> MJ Ray and Bruce Perens are not good representatives of Debian.
> Please don't hold their behaviour against us.

I hope I've been quite clear to everyone reading this thread that I've
been acting as a mere contributing member to SPI, not any sort of
representative of Debian. If this old task really needs some formal
representative to resolve it, I'll seek one, but I don't care who that
is, as long as we make progress towards fixing the bug.

While we're explaining things for the record: Ian Jackson is not
empowered to speak for Debian here either and might be generally
grumpy with me because I support the debian reform described in
http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.debian.devel.vote/12931
which could, as a consequence, make it easier to remove him from a
debian role he's held for 10 years or so. That's not why I support
the reform, though Ian did seem to take the proposal personally.

Regards,
--
MJ Ray http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html tel:+44-844-4437-237 -
Webmaster-developer, statistician, sysadmin, online shop builder,
consumer and workers co-operative member http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ -
Writing on koha, debian, sat TV, Kewstoke http://mjr.towers.org.uk/

On Wed, Mar 12, 2008 at 09:15:10AM +0000, MJ Ray wrote:
> So it seems the previous time(s) the Debian Project Leader was
> involved with SPI's board discussing this might as well have not
> happened, because we need to go through the whole tedious procedure
> again, to get SPI to pick up a task it referred away. Yippee(!)
> Apparently even a simple information question won't be answered unless
> it's posted to a new thread. Double yippee(!) We love setting out the
> hoops for jumping...

For reference, I did ask the current DPL (Sam Hocevar) in #spi what he
understood the status of the Debian website copyright issue to be and
with what priority he wanted SPI to deal with it / whether he considered
it important to deal with now. He said he didn't know and needed to
think about it, catch up on this spi-general thread, and get back to me.
We are not simply waiting passively, putting our fingers in our ears and
ignoring the issue until the DPL spontaneously contacts SPI. I did try
to see whether it's one of Debian's priorities right now, but my
impression is that Debian's interest in seeing the issue solved (as
represented to SPI by the DPL) has gone way down since Branden referred
it to SPI in 2005. This explains why I'm not rushing to deal with it.
However, since this discussion happened a number of days ago, I will
check back with Sam and see if he has an answer for me now.

- Jimmy Kaplowitz
jimmy(at)debian(dot)org

(PS - MJ, I don't have a log of this conversation, but I summarized the
substance of it above.)

On Wed, 12 Mar 2008 12:57:27 +0000
Ian Jackson <ijackson(at)chiark(dot)greenend(dot)org(dot)uk> wrote:

> Bruce Perens writes ("Re: are we being honest about legal
> resources?"):
> > It's pretty clear that there are now two camps that are not
> > particularly interested in each other's project, which hasn't
> > really been the case with SPI until recently.
>
> This is complete nonsense. Just because everyone disagrees with you
> and thinks you're a loose cannon, doesn't mean they dislike Debian.

Uh, seconded. This kind of reference is just amazing to me. I will say
that Debian's politics have always boggled me but so what. The software
rocks, and most people I have talked to that are Debian folks are quite
reasonable chaps.

Joshua D. Drake

--
The PostgreSQL Company since 1997: http://www.commandprompt.com/
PostgreSQL Community Conference: http://www.postgresqlconference.org/
Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
PostgreSQL SPI Liaison | SPI Director | PostgreSQL political pundit

On Tue, 11 Mar 2008 23:42:15 -0700
Bruce Perens <bruce(at)perens(dot)com> wrote:

> Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> > Not for the rest of PostgreSQL I assure you. Command Prompt is just
> > one player in a field of dozens. Command Prompt also does not
> > dictate in any way how the PostgreSQL community operates. We serve
> > at the grace of the community. I have to admit that this is one of
> > your more nonsensical posts.

> I'm sorry that I was not making sense. The statement you made to MJ
> was not one I am used to seeing from an SPI board member.

Fair enough.

>
> It's pretty clear that there are now two camps that are not
> particularly interested in each other's project, which hasn't really
> been the case with SPI until recently.

This really isn't true at all. You should consider that at least 4 of
the board members are not "Debian" people, although they are involved
with Debian. (I was firmly reminded of this on a chat with Jimmy).

What is clear is that SPI is actually trying to get its act together
(and doing a pretty good job) and that means certainly are coming into
play that didn't when you were around. Things like priorities, channels
of communication and financial accountability.

>
> SPI has had various people who had a financial interest in Debian on
> the board. I owned about 8% of Progeny, and various Progeny employees
> were on the board, but we weren't "The Debian Company".

And?

>
> And I am not entirely comfortable with this. Sorry. It's sincerely
> how I feel.
>

Not comfortable with which?

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

--
The PostgreSQL Company since 1997: http://www.commandprompt.com/
PostgreSQL Community Conference: http://www.postgresqlconference.org/
Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
PostgreSQL SPI Liaison | SPI Director | PostgreSQL political pundit

Theodore Tso <tytso(at)mit(dot)edu> wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 12, 2008 at 09:15:10AM +0000, MJ Ray wrote:
> > http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2008/03/msg00065.html [...]
>
> Looking at the Debian bug reports, one of the things which I'm
> confused about is whether Debian actually cares about this officially.

I think the Debian project cares about all bugs officially according
to their severity, but it's been pointed out in the above thread that
these bugs are unconfusing to those unfamiliar with the problem.
Would writing it up as a Debian Enhancement Proposal fix that?

> Remember, debian-legal [...]

While those views on debian-legal and debian-vote are interesting,
offensive and slightly incorrect, they're also irrelevant. Most of
the people wanting to fix the bug are from debian-www AFAIK. There's
some overlap with -legal, but that's hardly surprising.

> People from the Debian ftpmasters and Debian www team are delegated [...]

The detail of the www team's extent or powers seems a bit too hazy to
rely on those. Is it just the listed members (debwww group IIRC), the
core WWW Team (webwml) or the listed address debian-www(at)lists(dot)d(dot)o?

> [...] Looking at the bug reports in question, I can't tell whether
> or not anyone official at Debian has made the determination that this
> is worth being a priority project --- [...]

Priority project? One of www's maintainers marked it as an RC bug and
none of the others downgraded it in about 4 years. If someone has
decided that this matter can't get advice from SPI's lawyer, or that
debian has been advised, the bug tracker should be told, either way.

> So don't think asking the DPL to get involved is unreasonable. In
> fact, it is the only reasonable thing to do so.

What is unreasonable is making up new rules to claim a simple question
was forbidden or invalid because only one of SPI members asked.
That's just dicking people around with bureaucracy IMO.

As pointed out previously, a past DPL was involved and one of the SPI
board is asking the current DPL for the current view. Please let's
wait for that and see how the DPL election plays out (two candidates
have different types of web work as part of their platforms so far,
which seems a good reason to vote for them) and keep further flames
off this list.

Regards,
--
MJ Ray http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html tel:+44-844-4437-237 -
Webmaster-developer, statistician, sysadmin, online shop builder,
consumer and workers co-operative member http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ -
Writing on koha, debian, sat TV, Kewstoke http://mjr.towers.org.uk/

MJ Ray <mjr(at)phonecoop(dot)coop> wrote: [...]
> these bugs are unconfusing to those unfamiliar with the problem.
> Would writing it up as a Debian Enhancement Proposal fix that?

s/unconfusing/confusing/ # preferably by someone who writes clearly.

<lurk>
--
MJR/slef

On Wed March 12 2008 10:38:46 am MJ Ray wrote:
> The detail of the www team's extent or powers seems a bit too hazy to
> rely on those. Is it just the listed members (debwww group IIRC), the
> core WWW Team (webwml) or the listed address debian-www(at)lists(dot)d(dot)o?

Please, MJ. This has NO PLACE on an SPI list. I'm a Debian developer and
*I* don't even care. Take it to Debian.

> Priority project? One of www's maintainers marked it as an RC bug and
> none of the others downgraded it in about 4 years. If someone has
> decided that this matter can't get advice from SPI's lawyer, or that
> debian has been advised, the bug tracker should be told, either way.

Ditto for that.

Nobody at SPI should have to care about finding and updating bugs in some
member project's BTS. That simply doesn't scale.

> What is unreasonable is making up new rules to claim a simple question
> was forbidden or invalid because only one of SPI members asked.
> That's just dicking people around with bureaucracy IMO.

What new rule? It's been long established how SPI deals with member
projects. Each member project has a defined way of interacting with SPI.
And you are not it.

> As pointed out previously, a past DPL was involved and one of the SPI
> board is asking the current DPL for the current view. Please let's
> wait for that and see how the DPL election plays out (two candidates
> have different types of web work as part of their platforms so far,
> which seems a good reason to vote for them) and keep further flames
> off this list.

Again, irrelevant. SPI should not have to become involved with internal
politics of its member projects. The current DPL is the current DPL and can
interact with SPI if he so chooses, according to his judgement. If you want
to keep flames from this list, please stop pouring gasoline on the fire, ok?

It simply is not scalable for SPI to expend resources any time a specific
vocal mailing list poster wants SPI to. Don't forget that lawyers are not
the only resources involved; board members time is involved too. As a
general policy, I would find it exceptionally odd if SPI were to expend
resources on behalf of a member project when that member project hadn't
requested it.

Now, in this particular case, I haven't researched the history of it. The
only justification I could see here is if SPI believes something illegal is
going on that could expose SPI (and, by extension, its member projects) to
serious legal liability. In this case, the SPI board ought to take action
on their own to investigate the situation. However, I haven't seen anything
to indicate that this is the situation here.

-- John

On Tue, 2008-03-11 at 23:42 -0700, Bruce Perens wrote:
> It's pretty clear that there are now two camps that are not particularly
> interested in each other's project, which hasn't really been the case
> with SPI until recently.

A significant change in SPI over the last couple years is that we now
have a richer mix of substantial projects associated with us:

http://www.spi-inc.org/projects

I think the fact that the board is currently composed of members who
might mostly strongly associate themselves personally with two of those
projects is far less important than that SPI's board can clearly no
longer think of itself as primarily supporting / representing Debian.

I think that's a feature, not a bug.

Bdale

Joshua D. Drake wrote:
>> It's pretty clear that there are now two camps that are not
>> particularly interested in each other's project, which hasn't really
>> been the case with SPI until recently.
> This really isn't true at all. You should consider that at least 4 of
> the board members are not "Debian" people, although they are involved
> with Debian. (I was firmly reminded of this on a chat with Jimmy).
What made me think that was the case was this statement from Josh Berkus:
> The rest of the PostgreSQL people stopped reading the "Copyright
issues" thread several days ago.

>> but we weren't "The Debian Company".
> And?
This is in regard to "The PostgreSQL Company", of course. I saw an
identification of a block of the board as "the PostgreSQL people" plus
the commercial interest, I found it disquieting and felt I should
register that with you. I don't suggest an action item.

But this is getting very far from the reason I opened this dialogue.
Which is that I perceive that Open Source projects - not just Debian -
block themselves due to an IMO naive interpretation of the implications
of the multiple copyright holder problem. I simply did not want SPI to
contribute to Debian's continuing to block itself on this issue by
repeating the (IMO) naive interpretation to Debian, and do not otherwise
see a need to force the issue on Debian.

Regarding my concern with legal issues, it has been correctly pointed
out that I have not been called to the bar. I have presented at an
American Bar Association conference, and have keynoted legal conferences
operated by U. Washington, and Olswang (London), the last in November.
This is because I work with attorneys on the legal issues of Open
Source, both as an advisor to attorneys and their customers, and an
expert witness. So, I do consider this particular problem a domain in
which I can legitimately work - always with the cooperation of an attorney.

And although I want to solve the global problem, I am only concerned
that Debian is properly aware of its options and am willing to leave it
at that. I wasn't trying to represent Debian, and didn't appreciate
Ian's ad-hominem.

Thanks

Bruce

On Wed, Mar 12, 2008 at 08:31:22AM -0700, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> This really isn't true at all. You should consider that at least 4 of
> the board members are not "Debian" people, although they are involved
> with Debian. (I was firmly reminded of this on a chat with Jimmy).

I think I should clarify for those who might draw the wrong conclusions:
all of the board members who are members of the Debian project
presumably consider themselves "Debian" people, and I certainly do.
However, those who are also OFTC staff members presumably consider
themselves "OFTC" people too, even if they are also "Debian" people.
Likewise for any members involved in Debian and PostgreSQL; we don't
currently have any on the board, but if we ever do, such people will
presumably consider themselves both "Debian" people and "PostgreSQL"
people. This is consistent with what I think you meant despite the wording.

However, it is undoubtedly true that many of the Debian-affiliated board
members (hopefully all of them) feel a duty to fairly address the needs
of SPI associated projects other than Debian within SPI, as well as
those of Debian. I certainly do.

- Jimmy Kaplowitz
jimmy(at)spi-inc(dot)org

Bruce,

> Ugh. I think the problem here is that SPI has any mission _other_ than
> serving Debian.

Ah, so all that stuff *you* helped write into the original SPI charter
about serving the greater OSS community was a bunch of BS, then? You
never meant it?

SPI is an independant organization, with, at last count, nine member
projects. SPI is not part of the Debian decision-making process, and I
think quite a few DDs would be extremely offended at the idea of the SPI
board or mailing lists presuming to make decisions for Debian. I know
*I* would be if SPI presumed to do the same for PostgreSQL.

--Josh

Josh Berkus wrote:
> Ah, so all that stuff *you* helped write into the original SPI charter
> about serving the greater OSS community was a bunch of BS, then? You
> never meant it?
Those are wonderful goals, not a bunch of BS at all. Did I write them?

I just think there's an implementation problem. Today I think the DDs
would only fully trust an organization that they entirely own, if that,
and I missed that fact entirely back then.

Thanks

Bruce

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On Wed, 12 Mar 2008 10:14:47 -0700
Bruce Perens <bruce(at)perens(dot)com> wrote:

> Josh Berkus wrote:
> > Ah, so all that stuff *you* helped write into the original SPI
> > charter about serving the greater OSS community was a bunch of BS,
> > then? You never meant it?
>
>
> Those are wonderful goals, not a bunch of BS at all. Did I write them?
>
> I just think there's an implementation problem. Today I think the DDs
> would only fully trust an organization that they entirely own, if
> that, and I missed that fact entirely back then.

I welcome the watching of the Debian thread where you state that you
wish to start a non profit solely for the purpose of Debian.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

- --
The PostgreSQL Company since 1997: http://www.commandprompt.com/
PostgreSQL Community Conference: http://www.postgresqlconference.org/
Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
PostgreSQL political pundit | Mocker of Dolphins

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Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> I welcome the watching of the Debian thread where you state that you wish to start a non profit solely for the purpose of Debian.
Not me. I am admitting that I think I made a mistake, that's all.

Bruce

On Wed March 12 2008 12:14:47 pm Bruce Perens wrote:
> Josh Berkus wrote:
> > Ah, so all that stuff *you* helped write into the original SPI charter
> > about serving the greater OSS community was a bunch of BS, then? You
> > never meant it?
>
> Those are wonderful goals, not a bunch of BS at all. Did I write them?
>
> I just think there's an implementation problem. Today I think the DDs
> would only fully trust an organization that they entirely own, if that,
> and I missed that fact entirely back then.

Two words: dunc tank.

For those of you that don't follow Debian, the last time Debian people tried
to do this for a very narrow purpose, it led to probably the largest set of
flamewars in several years.

I think that few Debian developers care about the issues SPI works on, and
that would be no different if the organization that works on them
was "owned" by them. Most would rather just code. When I got feedback when
I was SPI president and tried to involve Debian developers more in SPI, the
few people that answered my request for feedback pretty much stated that
explicitly. They're glad to have some people that take care of this stuff
so they don't have to.

-- John

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On Wed, 12 Mar 2008 11:37:37 -0600
John Goerzen <jgoerzen(at)complete(dot)org> wrote:

> > I just think there's an implementation problem. Today I think the
> > DDs would only fully trust an organization that they entirely own,
> > if that, and I missed that fact entirely back then.
>
> Two words: dunc tank.

I remember that, which was my point about looking forward to watching
the thread.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

- --
The PostgreSQL Company since 1997: http://www.commandprompt.com/
PostgreSQL Community Conference: http://www.postgresqlconference.org/
Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
PostgreSQL political pundit | Mocker of Dolphins

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John Goerzen <jgoerzen(at)complete(dot)org> wrote:
> Please, MJ. This has NO PLACE on an SPI list. I'm a Debian developer and
> *I* don't even care. Take it to Debian.

Sorry for getting distracted by the specifics and ad-hominems again.
I already took the relevant bits away and I posted a link earlier
http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2008/03/msg00065.html

[...]
> > What is unreasonable is making up new rules to claim a simple question
> > was forbidden or invalid because only one of SPI members asked.
> > That's just dicking people around with bureaucracy IMO.
>
> What new rule? It's been long established how SPI deals with member
> projects. Each member project has a defined way of interacting with SPI.
> And you are not it.

Any new rule that only member projects can ask after "their" SPI
tasks. I'm not a member project and I'm not asking SPI to deal with a
member project or start a new task for it. I'm simply asking what SPI
thinks is the current status of a task it seems to have left open.

That seems to be forthcoming, so I repeat:-

> > As pointed out previously, a past DPL was involved and one of the SPI
> > board is asking the current DPL for the current view. Please let's
> > wait for that and see how the DPL election plays out (two candidates
> > have different types of web work as part of their platforms so far,
> > which seems a good reason to vote for them) and keep further flames
> > off this list.

Thanks,
--
MJ Ray http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html tel:+44-844-4437-237 -
Webmaster-developer, statistician, sysadmin, online shop builder,
consumer and workers co-operative member http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ -
Writing on koha, debian, sat TV, Kewstoke http://mjr.towers.org.uk/

Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> On Wed, 12 Mar 2008 11:37:37 -0600
> John Goerzen <jgoerzen(at)complete(dot)org> wrote:
>
>>> I just think there's an implementation problem. Today I think the
>>> DDs would only fully trust an organization that they entirely own,
>>> if that, and I missed that fact entirely back then.
>>>
>> Two words: dunc tank.
Please do not label me as suggesting anything like dunc-tank. I
understood why it would be a powder-keg for developers and never
supported it for that reason. Entities that hold money for projects do
not have to do what was suggested for dunc-tank.

On Wed, Mar 12, 2008 at 10:14:47AM -0700, Bruce Perens wrote:
> I just think there's an implementation problem. Today I think the DDs
> would only fully trust an organization that they entirely own, if that,
> and I missed that fact entirely back then.

Well, you're entitled to your opinion vis-a-vis what DD's would and
wouldn't be willing to trust. My personal guess is that most DD's
don't care. The fact of the matter is, the only way Debian can
actually express anything for certain is either by the DPL, or by
going through a formal Resolution process and requesting all DD's to
vote on the matter --- or (as some people mistakenly believe) by
whoever flames the loudest and longest on various unfortunate Debian
or SPI mailing lists.

There are certain *vocal* people who might only trust an organization
that they entirely own. What the DD population as a majority thinks
or trusts is something which we could only find out by a formal voting
process.

- Ted

Hi.

> When I got feedback when I was SPI president and tried to involve Debian
> developers more in SPI, the few people that answered my request for
feedback
> pretty much stated that explicitly. They're glad to have some people that
> take care of this stuff so they don't have to.

The same goes for madwifi.org. In fact it was the most important reason
for us to choose "join a non-profit umbrella" over "start our own
non-profit body".

Bye, Mike

On Tue, Mar 11, 2008 at 08:34:15PM -0700, Bruce Perens wrote:
> I think it would have worked out to be more fair to
> everyone had Command Prompt Inc. established its own foundation for
> Postgres.

Based on

http://www.postgresql.us/mission/

I guess this is now more or less happening?

Cheers,
aj

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On Sat, 15 Mar 2008 13:07:33 +1000
Anthony Towns <aj(at)azure(dot)humbug(dot)org(dot)au> wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 11, 2008 at 08:34:15PM -0700, Bruce Perens wrote:
> > I think it would have worked out to be more fair to
> > everyone had Command Prompt Inc. established its own foundation for
> > Postgres.
>
> Based on
>
> http://www.postgresql.us/mission/
>
> I guess this is now more or less happening?

No. Postgresql.us != Command Prompt. I just happen to be one of 3
current and soon to be 7 board members.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

- --
The PostgreSQL Company since 1997: http://www.commandprompt.com/
PostgreSQL Community Conference: http://www.postgresqlconference.org/
Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
PostgreSQL political pundit | Mocker of Dolphins

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On Sat, Mar 15, 2008 at 01:07:33PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 11, 2008 at 08:34:15PM -0700, Bruce Perens wrote:
> > I think it would have worked out to be more fair to
> > everyone had Command Prompt Inc. established its own foundation for
> > Postgres.
>
> Based on
>
> http://www.postgresql.us/mission/
>
> I guess this is now more or less happening?

It's not entirely clear to me. I did ask privately ask Josh Drake
whether this was being done by PostgreSQL or by individuals in the
PostgreSQL community, and whether this meant that PostgreSQL was pulling
out of SPI. He did answer, but the meaning of much of his answer was
unclear to a PostgreSQL outsider like me. (It might be quite clear to an
insider; this is not an accusation of evasiveness.) I will say that I
gave best wishes to him and the new association in accomplishing their
goals and helping PostgreSQL, whether or not they work in addition to
SPI or instead of it, and told him that I have no vested interest in
projects remaining associated with SPI against their will.

Josh, care to give a more clear answer publicly on this list to both of
those questions? Remember that many people on this list don't know the
difference between PostgreSQL.Org, the notion of a PostgreSQL.Org
project, Core, the PostgreSQL Fundraising Group, PostgreSQL as a whole,
PostgreSQL Global Development Group, and your positions in or
relationships with all of the above.

- Jimmy Kaplowitz
jimmy(at)spi-inc(dot)org

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On Fri, 14 Mar 2008 23:39:09 -0400
Jimmy Kaplowitz <jimmy(at)spi-inc(dot)org> wrote:

>
> Josh, care to give a more clear answer publicly on this list to both
> of those questions? Remember that many people on this list don't know
> the difference between PostgreSQL.Org, the notion of a PostgreSQL.Org
> project, Core, the PostgreSQL Fundraising Group, PostgreSQL as a
> whole, PostgreSQL Global Development Group, and your positions in or
> relationships with all of the above.

I can try :).

There is PostgreSQL.org. This is the "core" project. It is the
project that is affiliated with SPI. It is also the project in which I
hold the position SPI PostgreSQL Liaison.

There are other projects that are affiliated with PostgreSQL.org but not
affiliated with SPI. An example of this would be Postgis.

Then there are non profit corporations that are affiliated, supported
but not endorsed by PostgreSQL.org (PostgreSQL.org does not pick
favorites). Those would be:

PostgreSQLFR
ITPUG/postgresql.it
PGEU/postgresql.eu
PGUS/postgresql.us
JPUG/postgresql.jp

(I think we recently got a PostgreSQL.br too but I don't know the
official status).

Each one of the above are independent non profit entities that are made
up of PostgreSQL Community members but are not PostgreSQL.org
corporations or projects.

Basically PostgreSQL.org is the software community. All the non profits
around it are about well, what non profits are about, education,
outreach, workshops, promotion of ideals (in this case open source
databases) etc... Further they are regional.

PGEU for example is the PostgreSQL Community non profit for the
European Region including Western Russia. The idea is to allow all
those who do not have a central entity to have a clear association too.
So if I am in Austria which does not have a non profit for PostgreSQL,
by default I can join PGEU. Further PGEU is a central resource (not
authority) for all European user groups to coordinate with. One of the
things they are doing is having PGCON EU in the fall.

PGUS is designed to be the United States counterpart to PGEU and JPUG.

These non profit corporations do not in anyway control or direct
PostgreSQL.org. They are just legs of the spider. Of course in my
humble mind its a spider large enough to eat a dolphin, a thing called
big blue and some forward mystic with a big O.

Hope that helps.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

- --
The PostgreSQL Company since 1997: http://www.commandprompt.com/
PostgreSQL Community Conference: http://www.postgresqlconference.org/
Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
PostgreSQL political pundit | Mocker of Dolphins

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On Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 09:16:22PM -0700, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> Hope that helps.

It clears things up for me very nicely, thanks.

- Jimmy Kaplowitz
jimmy(at)spi-inc(dot)org

Bruce Perens wrote:
> I just think there's an implementation problem. Today I think the DDs
> would only fully trust an organization that they entirely own, if that,
> and I missed that fact entirely back then.
>
There was a time when I held this opinion. These days I must admit a
sense of pride when I see PostgreSQL as a member and read news stories
about SPI helping OpenOffice conduct its voting. I think that is great.

The original SPI concept that services are cheaper when you share them
between projects is a valid one. All the services that SPI uses like
lawyers, banks and the postal system are shared. We are just moving up
one notch in specialization. It seems to me that it would be a shame to
walk away from the original goal at this point, after so much work.

--
Ean Schuessler, CTO
ean(at)brainfood(dot)com
214-720-0700 x 315
Brainfood, Inc.
http://www.brainfood.com