Re: [Jdbm-developer] jdbm 2.x - license clarification

[Alex B. <boi...@in...>]

I have several points to make regarding this:

1) I agree that signing a contributor license agreement is a barrier.

2) To alleviate the need for a general contributor license agreement, I 
have seen projects like Axis2 provide a per-patch, or per-contribution 
agreement which bounds the scope of the contributor.  This is most of 
the time much easier to sign-off because you know exactly what you are 
transferring and when.  In their case, Axis2 use a plugin that hooks 
into Jira and you have to sign-off on all code attachment submissions.

3) Using a generally accepted license can help grow the community 
because it's easier for users to "consume" the product.   I won't go 
into details but IBM came to me last year to embed JDBM in one of their 
product and the process was very complicated because of our non-standard 
license and the lack of contributor agreement.

4) If companies like IBM, BEA, Iona, Oracle, Vodaphone, Reed Elsevier, 
Fujitsu-Siemens, HP, Novell, ... have all signed contributor agreements 
then it means it's feasible ;)

alex

Thompson, Bryan B. wrote:
> Alex,
> 
> I am happy enough with either of the existing licenses (jdbm/lgpl) or
> equally
> with Apache, BSD, etc.  However, while I understand that explicit agreements
> may be stronger, they may also pose insurmountable burdens for people
> participating at large companies.  There is a very real difference between
> a standing policy which permits contributions to open source project under
> appropriate circumstances and getting a VP of a large company and its legal
> department to sign off on an explicit agreement.
> 
> -bryan
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alex Boisvert [mailto:boi...@in...] 
> Sent: Friday, January 13, 2006 12:12 PM
> To: Thompson, Bryan B.
> Cc: JDBM Developer listserv
> Subject: Re: [Jdbm-developer] jdbm 2.x - license clarification
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, in fact what I would like to do is migrate to the Apache 2.x 
> license and have contributors sign some form of agreement to the license.
> 
> I can dig up the list of contributors and start this process.  It may 
> take some time but eventually this would be the best form of 
> clarification on the licensing side.
> 
> Is anybody opposed to switching to the Apache license?  I will follow-up 
> individually but let's have a public debate if there are strong feelings.
> 
> alex
> 
> Thompson, Bryan B. wrote:
>> Alex,
>>  
>> It would be nice if we could clear up the confusion in the source 
>> files
>> between the jdbm and the lgpl
>> licences.  It appears that the lgpl license files may have originated 
>> with the earlier db project.  I have
>> not survey the source files extensively to figure that out.
>>  
>> -bryan


-- 
Alex Boisvert, Product Development Director
Intalio, Inc. | www.intalio.com
boi...@in...