Re: Copyright resolution

[Jonathan Larmour <jifl@eCosCentric.com>]

Gary Thomas wrote:
> On Thu, 2003-03-20 at 21:25, Jonathan Larmour wrote:
>>
>>a) Create our own "eCos Foundation" whether not-for-profit or otherwise, 
>>and possibly then try to do a deal with Red Hat.;
> 
> I'm in favor of this, but it must be seen as vendor neutral, i.e. not
> favoring any commercial participant (eCosCentric or MLB or Mind or ...)

We can thrash out the details to ensure this, but to be honest, with 
licensing deals off the table it won't be that relevant... it will just be 
a repository for IP.

There are some other considerations with this one: if we want to make it a 
proper not-for-profit company we may have some difficulties with setting 
it up. Also NFP companies require approval I believe, which can take many 
months.

Finally, we may well require a lawyer to set up the appropriate articles 
of association or whatever since our situation won't be appropriate for 
something "off the shelf".

These aspects highlight one issue: this will take money to set up.

One disadvantage I omitted to mention is that some companies are reluctant 
to make assignments, or may even object outright. There's one big one 
(starts with 'I' :-)) that I know falls into the latter category.

One other option I didn't consider till now is the FSF. With the licensing 
suggestion gone, we don't have the same impediments. Perhaps we should 
consider approaching them after all. Would they take us under their wing 
even if we had dual copyright with Red Hat? Would we _want_ to be an FSF 
project with the potential influence from above that that may entail?

[snip]
>>I would like to hear from every maintainer in this thread. Unless we get 
>>complete consensus, I would suggest thrashing things out here a little, 
>>and then setting up a phone conference to reach the conclusion.
>>
>>I won't say what my favoured personal preference is until tomorrow as I 
>>want to prevent this post appearing biased :-P.
> 
> By "tomorrow", I assume that you mean Friday, March 21?

I just meant I'd send my views then, not a phone conference. We'll need 
more notice to be sure of getting everyone for that.

> I'm ready to discuss this at length whenever y'all are.  I note that 
> it's been 15 hours since Jonathan sent this, and AFAICT this is the
> only response so far.

I know Bart's opinion from IRC, but I'll let him speak for himself.

For me, I have a pretty clear view of the advantages and disadvantages 
both ways, but that doesn't make it a clear-cut answer :-). I think on the 
whole I'm for keeping assignments to a single entity, not least because I 
don't think we can accept contributions without the "company disclaimer" 
document thingy mentioned before, and frankly I think most developers will 
have that type of contract.... at which point we may as well just continue 
with assignments as the _extra_ bureaucratic hurdle is minimal (with the 
exception of companies beginning with "I" :-)).

I'm still not decided on the details of that. I'd be interested in other's 
views on the FSF, but I'm certainly wary of the financial and bureaucratic 
obligations of doing our own. It may be easier and/or cheaper to set up in 
the UK rather than the US (thinking of lawyer's fees as well here). It 
probably _wouldn't_ need to be explicitly not-for-profit, with the extra 
burdens that has, as we can enshrine something good enough in the articles 
of association and the entity wouldn't be handling money.

Jifl
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