Re: [Notion-devel] what we're waiting for

[M R. <mr...@gm...>]

On Mon, 2010-04-12 at 14:08 -0400, Aron Griffis wrote:
> Hi Rawash (is this how you prefer to be addressed?)

yah, why not? :)

> Thanks for this update...
> 
> M Rawash wrote:  [Mon Apr 12 2010, 11:25:54AM EDT]
> >hi everybody, thought I'd give you a little update of what's going on.
> >Ole Brønner and I spoke earlier about our legal situation (with regard
> >to Tuomo's license); he's in favour of getting Tuomo's blessing to fork
> >the latest Ion3(plus) release, while i'm in favour of forking an earlier
> >version of Ion that didn't include Tuomo's terms. Ole has contacted
> >Tuomo and we have set a deadline ("a couple of days") for a response,
> 
> This is certainly the most desirable option, though it does seem
> unlikely that Tuomo will acquiesce. No offense intended, but if
> he saw your comments earlier to the tune of "let him sue!" that
> probably didn't help.

ok, maybe that was too early, but i assumed (and i'm probably still
right), that Tuomo's rejection of what we're doing is a done deal (based
on his responses to earlier emails/"Fake Tuomo"); but Ole had a
different opinion, hence, the current situation.

> >and since it's very likely that Tuomo won't respond, i think we should
> >be aware of our other options while we wait, and here they are:
> >
> >- forking Ion while keeping Tuomo's license, this, of course, will
> >render the fork 'non-free', and infringe on our own right to license any
> >future work under a different license.
> 
> IMHO we want to avoid this option because we will continue to
> have problems getting into distributions.

> >- fork Ion and change the license (possibly to GPL), this will leave us
> >vulnerable to Tuomo's hostility (assuming he is indeed hostile), since
> >it's basically 'illegal' in light of Tuomo's additional terms (which,
> >according to Tuomo, "take precedence over the LGPL").
> 
> IMHO we want to avoid this option too. We will be on dubious
> legal ground and distributions will not want to deal with it.

> >- fork an earlier version of Ion that didn't include Tuomo's additional
> >terms (or one that had a loophole in it), this means a lot of extra
> >work, when many people would like to see us moving on (start adding new
> >features, rather than going back and fix/add old ones).
> 
> If Tuomo doesn't give his blessing to fork current ion3 with
> simple LGPL then I think this is the next best option. It means
> more work but it leaves us free of license problems.

+1 on all accounts.


regards,
M Rawash