Hi! Andrew Milton wrote:
You took someone else's work and claimed it as your own. This is the worst crime you can commit in the Open Source world.
I think it's not really a discussion about Open Source here as it should make no difference to the Zope community whether ZC or ZEA is holding the TM. Both don't represent it and both possibly could do harm to it if they just wanted to (which they don't want as I see it). I think it's more a story about a company which some time ago made their software open source. The result of that was a big win for the Zope project as it attracted a lot of developers and, as a result, created a lot of additional projects like Silva, Plone, CPS etc. So now we have quite a big community advocating the use of Zope and now also doing the main development of the software itself (in form of Zope3). I am part of that community and I am proud of that :-) So from Zope having it's roots in that company these problems arise IMHO. So having said that I am a bit disappointed by the recent discussions here as it's maybe the sign of some unresolved problems between certain important players in the Zope world. Some points: - How the thread was started by ZC was IMHO not really good style. For me it sounded like very hard words and threatening with not doing the foundation did not sound too good and not really a good thing for the community. I also still don't understand what the foundation has to do with the actual TM discussion - wasn't it just the logo about which was being discussed? So what would have happened in the case if not ZEA did register it but any evil guy? To hold the creation of the Foundation should not have been the answer in any case! - if ZEA has registered the TM without telling ZC this is of course not ok. I understand if you don't discuss it loudly so that other parties hurry to register it but it could have been solved easily back then with a silent negotiation between the two parties. (too bad ZC did not simply register everything themselves so we would have one discussion less) - in general: Bashing each other will not help Zope and not the community. And a damaged community cannot help ZC or ZEA or any other player in the Zope world. So it should be in everyones interest to keep things going in a good mood. So that much about the form now more about my worries about the TM itself. Legally of course ZC is the right owner of the TMs as they created Zope. But OTOH it would feel more right if the TM would be transferred to the Zope Foundation. ZC once opensourced their project and the main work in terms of coding and marketing seems to be done by the community now and less and less by ZC (at least it seems to me that way). And for me Zope also feels like an open source project through and through and not something belonging to some single company.
From what I see that's also the way most of the rest of the world thinks about it, especially in Europe. Thus for me it would just feel better if also the TM would be given to the community in form of the foundation (as "the community" is no real legal person the foundation might be the next possible thing).
I also read about the irrevocable license given to the Zope Foundation and it might make no difference legally for the TM whether ZC or the ZF owns it. But as said before, I am no legal expert and thus I don't know about all the impacts and thus I am worried. So also because of this it would feel better for me if the TM would be owned by the ZF as there are just more checks&balances between their members than there will be with a single player. And hopefully I would at least trust one of them ;-) But maybe somebody can answer me some questions about it anyway: 1. What does the license mean. Does it mean that ZF will also have the right to decide who is allowed what to do with the TM, and even restrict ZC? 2. If ZC might get evil (I don't assume that, btw :-): What might happen with sites like zopelabs or any other site/institution having "Zope" in it's name. Can they tell them to remove that name? 3. What will happen in this worst case if ZC (or more exactly evil ZC) will suddenly start doing a Java CMS under the name "Zope"? Can the ZF prevent this? So basically it's not quite clear to me if the license just means that ZF is allowed to use the name or if they also can really protect it. There might always be the possibility to rename the whole project but why should I advocate Zope now if this investment might be lost someday? So because of this discussion I am a bit worried. It might be called "irrational fears" but I might not be the only one and as many in the community are not fluent in legal things this stuff should be thought about very carefully in order to keep the environment intact as this is what Zope makes alive. (OTOH the community seems not really taking part in that discussion so maybe it's just me who is a bit worried ;-) Finally I would like to ask all arguing parties, like ZF and ZEA (and after reading their blog maybe also Nuxeo) to get together and get things get sorted out between them. I hope there's a will to do it. Otherwise the often repeated phrase "we are all in one boat" etc. sounds a bit strange.. The climate could at least be better.. regards, Christian PS: Sorry for this long post ;-)