[gentoo-dev] Re: Forming Gentoo Policy - Copyright Assignment and Attribution

[gentoo-dev] Re: Forming Gentoo Policy - Copyright Assignment and Attribution

[Greg KH]

On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 04:51:17PM -0400, Rich Freeman wrote:
> 
> If you have any concerns/objections to the policy which was outlined,
> which includes a mandatory requirement to sign a contributor license
> agreement and an option to also sign an assignment-like document based
> on the FSFe FLA, please speak up this week.

I've already said this before, but I guess I need to say it again:

	If a contributor license is required to be signed, I'll have to
	stop contributing to Gentoo.

Other developers will be also affected, and you will find it hard to
attract new developers who happen to work for companies that forbid
their employees to sign these types of things (a _very_ common thing in
the US, I have yet to work for a company in the past 20+ years that
would have allowed this without going through the company's legal
council for approval, a usually very difficult thing to achieve for a
single developer.)

I was here when the copyright assignment form was dropped due to all of
the problems it was causing new developers (myself included.)  Have you
somehow figured out how to handle all of the issues that were raised 8+
years ago with the old assignment we had?

Is there really no one around now (other than myself) that had to deal
with that mess in the past?

History, forgetting it, doomed.

sadly,

greg k-h

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Forming Gentoo Policy - Copyright Assignment and Attribution

[Theo Chatzimichos]

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On Monday 11 of March 2013 14:19:55 Greg KH wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 04:51:17PM -0400, Rich Freeman wrote:
> > If you have any concerns/objections to the policy which was outlined,
> > which includes a mandatory requirement to sign a contributor license
> > agreement and an option to also sign an assignment-like document based
> > on the FSFe FLA, please speak up this week.
> 
> I've already said this before, but I guess I need to say it again:
> 
> 	If a contributor license is required to be signed, I'll have to
> 	stop contributing to Gentoo.
> 
> Other developers will be also affected, and you will find it hard to
> attract new developers who happen to work for companies that forbid
> their employees to sign these types of things (a _very_ common thing in
> the US, I have yet to work for a company in the past 20+ years that
> would have allowed this without going through the company's legal
> council for approval, a usually very difficult thing to achieve for a
> single developer.)
> 
> I was here when the copyright assignment form was dropped due to all of
> the problems it was causing new developers (myself included.)  Have you
> somehow figured out how to handle all of the issues that were raised 8+
> years ago with the old assignment we had?
> 
> Is there really no one around now (other than myself) that had to deal
> with that mess in the past?
> 
> History, forgetting it, doomed.
> 
> sadly,
> 
> greg k-h

I'm not having any personal issue here, but I'm with Greg here, since this 
action means loosing any single contributor. We're a project ran by 
volunteers, we get more retirements than additions lately, and we can't even 
afford loosing anybody. -1 from me as well.

Theo

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Forming Gentoo Policy - Copyright Assignment and Attribution

[Robin H. Johnson]

On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 02:19:55PM -0700, Greg KH wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 04:51:17PM -0400, Rich Freeman wrote:
> > If you have any concerns/objections to the policy which was outlined,
> > which includes a mandatory requirement to sign a contributor license
> > agreement and an option to also sign an assignment-like document based
> > on the FSFe FLA, please speak up this week.
> I've already said this before, but I guess I need to say it again:
> 	If a contributor license is required to be signed, I'll have to
> 	stop contributing to Gentoo.
Did you read the entire email? We explicitly listed one of the options
as (voluntary FLA/CLA AND mandatory DCO).

Could you clarify that you're objecting to that as well? In your case,
you could elect NOT to sign the FLA/CLA. Regardless, all of your commits
would have the DCO SoB signature.

The kernel is where we got the mandatory DCO concept.

-- 
Robin Hugh Johnson
Gentoo Linux: Developer, Trustee & Infrastructure Lead
E-Mail     : robbat2@gentoo.org
GnuPG FP   : 11ACBA4F 4778E3F6 E4EDF38E B27B944E 34884E85

[gentoo-dev] Re: Forming Gentoo Policy - Copyright Assignment and Attribution

[Rich Freeman]

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On Mar 11, 2013 6:22 PM, "Robin H. Johnson" <robbat2@gentoo.org> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 02:19:55PM -0700, Greg KH wrote:
> > On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 04:51:17PM -0400, Rich Freeman wrote:
> > > If you have any concerns/objections to the policy which was outlined,
> > > which includes a mandatory requirement to sign a contributor license
> > > agreement and an option to also sign an assignment-like document based
> > > on the FSFe FLA, please speak up this week.
> > I've already said this before, but I guess I need to say it again:
> >       If a contributor license is required to be signed, I'll have to
> >       stop contributing to Gentoo.
> Did you read the entire email? We explicitly listed one of the options
> as (voluntary FLA/CLA AND mandatory DCO).
>
> Could you clarify that you're objecting to that as well? In your case,
> you could elect NOT to sign the FLA/CLA. Regardless, all of your commits
> would have the DCO SoB signature.
>
> The kernel is where we got the mandatory DCO concept.

This one is my bad. I wrote CLA when I meant DCO.

No change intended. This is what happens when you send a thirty second
follow-up to a policy formed over two weeks, and then step away to eat...

But, at least we know people read it!

Rich

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[gentoo-dev] Re: Forming Gentoo Policy - Copyright Assignment and Attribution

[Rich Freeman]

On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 6:40 PM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:
> No change intended. This is what happens when you send a thirty second
> follow-up to a policy formed over two weeks, and then step away to eat...

So, clarification now that I'm back at a keyboard...

DCO is mandatory, and is simply a declaration that the committer has
checked and the new code is distributed under the license chosen for
the project (see original email for details, but generally
GPL/BSD/etc).  The Linux kernel is the main model for this.  Since
Gentoo is not always being assigned copyright we need to have a clear
declaration that the code is available under a suitable free license
so that we can further distribute it.

FLA is optional, and is essentially a copyright assignment (or
reasonable facsimile in certain jurisdictions designed by the FSFe).
KDE is the main model for this.

But, to whatever extent that anything I just wrote disagrees with the
original email, just read the original email.  The original email was
carefully proofread by the Trustees, the rest is just
discussion/reminders/etc.  The final policy will be even more
carefully reviewed.  The whole bit about mandatory copyright
assignment was dropped after the last round of discussion for all the
reasons that have just been rehashed...

Rich

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Forming Gentoo Policy - Copyright Assignment and Attribution

[Greg KH]

On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 07:12:43PM -0400, Rich Freeman wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 6:40 PM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:
> > No change intended. This is what happens when you send a thirty second
> > follow-up to a policy formed over two weeks, and then step away to eat...
> 
> So, clarification now that I'm back at a keyboard...
> 
> DCO is mandatory, and is simply a declaration that the committer has
> checked and the new code is distributed under the license chosen for
> the project (see original email for details, but generally
> GPL/BSD/etc).  The Linux kernel is the main model for this.  Since
> Gentoo is not always being assigned copyright we need to have a clear
> declaration that the code is available under a suitable free license
> so that we can further distribute it.
> 
> FLA is optional, and is essentially a copyright assignment (or
> reasonable facsimile in certain jurisdictions designed by the FSFe).
> KDE is the main model for this.
> 
> But, to whatever extent that anything I just wrote disagrees with the
> original email, just read the original email.  The original email was
> carefully proofread by the Trustees, the rest is just
> discussion/reminders/etc.  The final policy will be even more
> carefully reviewed.  The whole bit about mandatory copyright
> assignment was dropped after the last round of discussion for all the
> reasons that have just been rehashed...

Ok, good, that's why I didn't object to the first email, only to this
one which seemed to say something else, so I assumed it was I who
misread the first version.

Nevermind then, sorry for the noise :)

greg k-h

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Forming Gentoo Policy - Copyright Assignment and Attribution

[Andreas K. Huettel]

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Am Dienstag, 12. März 2013, 00:12:43 schrieb Rich Freeman:
> So, clarification now that I'm back at a keyboard...
> 
> DCO is mandatory, and is simply a declaration that the committer has
> checked and the new code is distributed under the license chosen for
> the project (see original email for details, but generally
> GPL/BSD/etc).  The Linux kernel is the main model for this.  Since
> Gentoo is not always being assigned copyright we need to have a clear
> declaration that the code is available under a suitable free license
> so that we can further distribute it.
> 
> FLA is optional, and is essentially a copyright assignment (or
> reasonable facsimile in certain jurisdictions designed by the FSFe).
> KDE is the main model for this.

Which obviously means, now if everyone signs a KDE with GPL'ed key and sends 
it with SPF to TGF (The Gentoo Foundation), everything is IPO. (In Perfect 
Order.)

Seriously, could you repeat this for laymen and non-americans?

-- 

Andreas K. Huettel
Gentoo Linux developer 
dilfridge@gentoo.org
http://www.akhuettel.de/


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Forming Gentoo Policy - Copyright Assignment and Attribution

[Alec Warner]

On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 12:12 AM, Andreas K. Huettel
<dilfridge@gentoo.org> wrote:
> Am Dienstag, 12. März 2013, 00:12:43 schrieb Rich Freeman:
>> So, clarification now that I'm back at a keyboard...
>>
>> DCO is mandatory, and is simply a declaration that the committer has
>> checked and the new code is distributed under the license chosen for
>> the project (see original email for details, but generally
>> GPL/BSD/etc).  The Linux kernel is the main model for this.  Since
>> Gentoo is not always being assigned copyright we need to have a clear
>> declaration that the code is available under a suitable free license
>> so that we can further distribute it.

If you read earlier in the thread, you will see an example of a DCO.
My naive understanding is that a DCO helps shore up the legal defense
the foundation may have when inevitable violations occur.

A DCO is mentioned in step 12:
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=blob;f=Documentation/SubmittingPatches#l298

>>
>> FLA is optional, and is essentially a copyright assignment (or
>> reasonable facsimile in certain jurisdictions designed by the FSFe).
>> KDE is the main model for this.
>
> Which obviously means, now if everyone signs a KDE with GPL'ed key and sends
> it with SPF to TGF (The Gentoo Foundation), everything is IPO. (In Perfect
> Order.)

http://fsfe.org/activities/ftf/fla.en.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contributor_License_Agreement

>
> Seriously, could you repeat this for laymen and non-americans?

Hey it all makes sense for us Americas, its you Europeans that make
stuff all complex :)

>
> --
>
> Andreas K. Huettel
> Gentoo Linux developer
> dilfridge@gentoo.org
> http://www.akhuettel.de/
>

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Forming Gentoo Policy - Copyright Assignment and Attribution

[Rich Freeman]

On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 3:12 AM, Andreas K. Huettel
<dilfridge@gentoo.org> wrote:
> Am Dienstag, 12. März 2013, 00:12:43 schrieb Rich Freeman:
>> So, clarification now that I'm back at a keyboard...
>>
>> DCO is mandatory, and is simply a declaration that the committer has
>> checked and the new code is distributed under the license chosen for
>> the project (see original email for details, but generally
>> GPL/BSD/etc).  The Linux kernel is the main model for this.  Since
>> Gentoo is not always being assigned copyright we need to have a clear
>> declaration that the code is available under a suitable free license
>> so that we can further distribute it.
>>
>> FLA is optional, and is essentially a copyright assignment (or
>> reasonable facsimile in certain jurisdictions designed by the FSFe).
>> KDE is the main model for this.
>
> Which obviously means, now if everyone signs a KDE with GPL'ed key and sends
> it with SPF to TGF (The Gentoo Foundation), everything is IPO. (In Perfect
> Order.)
>
> Seriously, could you repeat this for laymen and non-americans?

Well, the full description is in the original email, but:

DCO = Developer Certificate of Origin.  For an example see [1]
starting at line 309.  This is just a declaration that the
authorship/license/etc is accurate/compatible/etc.  As mentioned
previously, signing this is mandatory, and we'll try to streamline it
as is done on other projects like Linux (again, see [1]).

GPL = GNU Public License
GNU = GNU's Not Unix
BSD = Berkeley Software Distribution License
Linux = A little-known OS kernel
Gentoo = An OS distribution you might have heard of

FLA = Fiduciary License Agreement.  This is essentially similar to a
copyright assignment, but it is designed to be legal in jurisdictions
that do not permit copyright assignment (such as Germany).  For an
example see [2].  As mentioned, signing this is optional, and it would
be signed electronically as well.

KDE = K Desktop Environment.
K = See [3], or better still the unabridged OED.
OED = Oxford English Dictionary.  Before there was emerge
--quiet-build n there was the OED.

But yes, you can be forgiven for not caring about much of this stuff.  :)

Rich

1 - http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/Documentation/SubmittingPatches

2 - http://ev.kde.org/rules/fla.php

3 - http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/K

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Forming Gentoo Policy - Copyright Assignment and Attribution

[Stanislav Ochotnicky]

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Quoting Greg KH (2013-03-11 22:19:55)
> On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 04:51:17PM -0400, Rich Freeman wrote:
> > 
> > If you have any concerns/objections to the policy which was outlined,
> > which includes a mandatory requirement to sign a contributor license
> > agreement and an option to also sign an assignment-like document based
> > on the FSFe FLA, please speak up this week.
> 
> I've already said this before, but I guess I need to say it again:
> 
>         If a contributor license is required to be signed, I'll have to
>         stop contributing to Gentoo.
> 
> Other developers will be also affected, and you will find it hard to
> attract new developers who happen to work for companies that forbid
> their employees to sign these types of things (a _very_ common thing in
> the US, I have yet to work for a company in the past 20+ years that
> would have allowed this without going through the company's legal
> council for approval, a usually very difficult thing to achieve for a
> single developer.)

I am wondering if even things like Fedora Project Contributor Agreement[1] would
cause trouble for you and people in similar situation. I.e. FPCA is not a
copyright agreement as such, it's just setting default license for project for
contributions without license and provides a set of licenses that are OK for
project. In Fedora's case MIT was chosen as default for code and CC-BY-SA-3.0
for content. I am also assuming FPCA-style agreement wouldn't really solve
whatever issues are to be solved with optional assignment policy but who
knows...

I myself do not care much for copyright assignment policies even though I have
no legal problem with it per se. 

[1] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal:Fedora_Project_Contributor_Agreement


-- 
Stanislav Ochotnicky

PGP: 7B087241
jabber: stanislav@ochotnicky.com

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