Re: new modules consensus

[Elijah P Newren <newren math utah edu>]

On Thu, 2004-08-12 at 14:06 +0100, Mark McLoughlin wrote:
>  - libsoup
>    gal
>    gtkhtml
>    evolution-data-server
>    evolution
>    evolution-exchange

<snip>

>      Discussion over Evolution's copyright assignment policy start out
>      as "its relatively harmless and not a huge issue" to a gigantic 
>      flamewar. I haven't followed the discussion closely enough to be 
>      confident that I'll do a good job of summarising the issues, but 
>      briefly:
> 
>        - Issues with the actual text of the contract which need 
>          resolving in order for people to be confident that a future
>          Evil Novell couldn't ship their code solely under a proprietary
>          license
>  
>        - Worries that the requirement to sign the contract will turn 
>          people away from hacking on Evolution because of concerns about
>          the contract itself or sheer laziness ("I just want to hack, I 
>          don't want to sign this")

There was a potentially related issue to this that you didn't cover and
which I haven't seen addressed.  Shaun mentioned that copyright
assignment could impact the documentation project in a much more severe
way than coding as far as contributors are concerned.  The email was:

http://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2004-August/msg00104.html

Now, this could be totally irrelevant if copyright assignment is
required for code but not for documentation.  But it would be nice to
either have someone state that such is the case, or else suggest ways we
could work to make sure this doesn't become problematic for the GDP.  I
don't see the issue as a blocker by any means but it does merit some
discussion.

>        - Concerns that including Evolution with these issues would set a
>          dangerous precedent.

A dangerous precedent has already been set--if a module is proposed that
requires copyright assignment, the precedent we set was that a huge
flamewar erupts.  ;-)

Jokes aside, though, I believe the precedent thing has become a non-
issue.  (see
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2004-August/msg00044.html 
).  It's clear that modules requiring copyright assignment won't get a
free ride.

<snip>

>        a) whether any of the issues listed above absolutely need to 
>           resolved before inclusion, or 
> 
>        b) whether we are confident that the Evolution team and the GNOME
>           community will resolve these issues post inclusion
> 
>      If we decide (a), then we must hope that the people will continue 
>      to work hard to resolve the problems and at some point in the
>      future we'll be able include Evolution. If we decide (b), we then
>      hope that Evolution's inclusion will actually boost peoples desire
>      to resolve the problems rather than give people the impression that
>      no problems remain.
> 
>      I vote (b)

I also vote (b), but I think in particular that the "patent bomb" issue
raised by Alan (see
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2004-August/msg00154.html
) really needs to be resolved.


Elijah