[Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] Indexes: Main | Date | Thread | Author

Re: [ba-ohs-talk] ohs cvs? [Licensing]


Eric Armstrong wrote:
 > Alatalo Toni wrote:
 >
 >
 >>James Michael DuPont <mdupont777@yahoo.com> wrote:
 >>
 >>>--- "John J. Deneen" <jjdeneen@netzero.net> wrote:
 >>>
 >>>>  About 8-months have elapsed since the Bootstrap Alliance website
 >>>>was  last updated ....     (01)
 >>>
 >>>even more, I have not seen any code submitted.    (02)
 >>
 >>that has been my greatest wonder as well.
 >
 >
 > I've been monitoring the list, wondering if anything was ever going to
 > happen. I kept hearing about all the great open source efforts that
 > were going to contribute it, if only the license issues were resolved.
 >
 > Then the license were resolved -- to everyone's satisfaction, as far
 > as I could tell -- and the list fell silent.
 >
 > The problem that extends well beyond *that* however, is the fact
 > that someone seems to have misplaced the OHS spec. Dear me.
 > Now, where did that pesky spec go? I know it was around here
 > someplace...
 >
 > Lacking *an* OHS, I would love to see a list of descriptions for
 > OHS-like systems that showed:
 >    a) What they intended to achieve, where they intended to go
 >    b) What languages/platforms they used
 >    c) How much was currently implemented
 >    d) The project plan or feature wishlist
 >    e) What others had to say about it
 >    (01)

Eric-    (02)

That would be a great set of organized descriptions to have!    (03)

Sorry to continue to be a wet blanket, but for me at least the license 
issue was never resolved. Submissions to the Bootstrap lists were never 
to my knowledge licensed by the Bootstrap Institute or Stanford under 
any license. A posting from Mei Lin Fung back around May 31, 2002 
affirmed essentially something like that the Bootstrap Allianace (not BI 
and not Stanford) did not consider a newer mailing list as being under 
"permission to use" but no reference was made to Stanford or BI signing 
off on this.    (04)

I responded to that but at the time the mailing list must have been 
broken as the message (see below) got bounced. I didn't follow up beyond 
that as I'm sort of past caring about it at this point -- the list is 
very useful as it is just for discussing what others are doing, also I 
have made all my points before and they had obviously not been 
integrated into the result. I think a copy of that CCd to the lawyer 
involved got through but there was no direct response on that.    (05)

Essentially what still needs to happen in my opinion is:
a) "permission to use" still needs to be formally repealed or limited in 
writing by the related parties who claim it (specifically the liability 
issue) and replaced by a simpler authorization to use under one or more 
licenses and perhaps also of an affirmation "to the best of my 
knowledge" of noninfringement. In my opinion the 5/31/2002 statement 
does not address this.
b) all the the mailing list contents need to be formally licensed so we 
can legally use it as a core for a shared OHS. This has still never 
happened to my knowledge. (Was Chris Dent et al ever at least given any 
formal permission to redistribute the mailing list on their site?)
c) Other issues relating to volunteerism previously brought up still 
need to be resolved, but this is meaningless until a) and b) are 
resolved. The specific verbage of "permission to use" sort of says all 
that needs to be said about attitute implicitly towards volunteers (i.e. 
ask for help and stick the patent infringement liability on the helpers.)
d) (Probably) Acceptance that any complex system may likely incorporate 
multiple components under different licenses.    (06)

However, these sorts of choices are always risk vs. reward. For many 
people, they may not consider the legal risk outstanding from 
"permission to use" to worth worrying about, and likewise, they may not 
worry too much about potential copyright violations of putting list 
material on the web if they think they are otherwise working in good 
faith. (Chris Dent et al...)
   http://ella.slis.indiana.edu./~klabarre/unrev_firstpage.html
   http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/~cjdent/unrev/index.cgi    (07)

For me, the risk is too high as things still stand to contribute to the 
OHS considering the reward and the alternatives. That is also why I 
stopped posting to the list (except generally in relation to resolving 
the license issue so I can participate.) Personally, I find it much 
legally safer to contribute to free or open source efforts unencumbered 
by "permission to use", and to likewise not directly use any Bootstrap 
related mailing contents as source materials due to "permission to use".    (08)

Also, Chris Dent et al. had the problem of finding their university not 
immediately amenable to letting them release their source code under a 
non-proprietary license (has this been resolved?) so actually this (and 
other examples) makes me much more inclined to contribute significant 
works only under the copylefted licesnes like the GPL or LGPL (naturally 
others might choose other things for other reasons), whereas I think the 
license supposedly decided on here is/was MPLish?    (09)

However, it has also occurred to me to resolve issue b) above by 
individually contacting significant list posters (such as yourself) and 
asking them to jointly license their works under an alternative license 
(whatever) as a way to circumvents BI and Stanford's lack of response on 
that specific topic. However, I have not proceeded on that basis because 
of other priorities, and also because the tarbaby of "permission to use" 
might still stick to even that effort.    (010)

-Paul Fernhout    (011)

I have attached my bounced response from then:    (012)

============================================    (013)

This is the Postfix program at host carmine.bestweb.net.    (014)

I'm sorry to have to inform you that the message returned
below could not be delivered to one or more destinations.    (015)

For further assistance, please send mail to <postmaster>    (016)

If you do so, please include this problem report. You can
delete your own text from the message returned below.    (017)

			The Postfix program    (018)

<ba-ohs-talk@bootstrap.org>: Name service error for bootstrap.org: Host 
found
     but no data record of requested type    (019)

<ba-unrev-talk@bootstrap.org>: Name service error for bootstrap.org: 
Host found
     but no data record of requested type    (020)

<engelbart@bootstrap.org>: Name service error for bootstrap.org: Host 
found but
     no data record of requested type    (021)



Reporting-MTA: dns; carmine.bestweb.net
Arrival-Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 22:17:35 -0500 (EST)    (022)

Final-Recipient: rfc822; ba-ohs-talk@bootstrap.org
Action: failed
Status: 5.0.0
Diagnostic-Code: X-Postfix; Name service error for bootstrap.org: Host found
     but no data record of requested type    (023)

Final-Recipient: rfc822; ba-unrev-talk@bootstrap.org
Action: failed
Status: 5.0.0
Diagnostic-Code: X-Postfix; Name service error for bootstrap.org: Host found
     but no data record of requested type    (024)

Final-Recipient: rfc822; engelbart@bootstrap.org
Action: failed
Status: 5.0.0
Diagnostic-Code: X-Postfix; Name service error for bootstrap.org: Host found
     but no data record of requested type    (025)

Subject:
Re: [ba-ohs-talk] Licensing and Permission to Use
From:
Paul Fernhout <pdfernhout@kurtz-fernhout.com>
Date:
Fri, 31 May 2002 23:18:27 -0400
To:
ba-ohs-talk@bootstrap.org
CC:
ba-unrev-talk@bootstrap.org, krobbins@amtech-usa.org, 
engelbart@bootstrap.org    (026)

Mei Lin Fung wrote:    (027)

 > B. Permission to Use clarification
 >
 > The CPC resolved 5/30/02 to communicate to the unrev and ohs lists:
 >
 > B.1 The Bootstrap Alliance (BA) is the sole host of the ba-ohs-talk list
 > and the ba-unrev-talk list and encourages participation in the list
 > discussions.
 >
 > BA wishes to clarify that the ba-unrev-talk discussion list and the
 > ba-ohs-talk discussion list are not formally connected to the Colloquium
 > on the Unfinished Revolution, co-sponsored by Stanford University,2000.
 > Presenters in the Colloquium were asked to sign a document, called
 > Permission to Use. The Permission to Use does not apply to BA activities
 > and in no way governs interactions on either the ba-unrev-talk and
 > ba-ohs-talk lists.    (028)

Not to be too picky, but ideally looking forward to BI & Stanford
signing off on this too. For reference:
   http://www.bootstrap.org/colloquium/permission.html
"I hereby grant the Bootstrap Institute ("BI") and/or Stanford
University
("Stanford") permission to use... This permission and indemnity shall
apply to all activities involved as a result of my participation in the
Colloquium and its extended or subsequent related activities." The only
mention of BA there is just in reference to a webcast. As I see it,
people in BA are as stuck in the "permission to use" tarbaby as anyone
else remotely affiliated with the Colloquium (especially when sponsoring
a mailing list with "unrev" in it).
   http://www.crt.state.la.us/folklife/edu_ss200_rabbit_tarbaby.html    (029)

Is the legal opinion that such a disclaimer is sufficient to not make
these mailing lists or related projects "subsequent activities"? If so,
I applaud closure on that topic.    (030)

In any case, thanks for the update on permission to use.
Nice to see the start of formal progress on this issue.    (031)

-Paul Fernhout    (032)