[Zope] Re: The Zope Software Certification Program and Common Repository Proposal

[Philipp von Weitershausen]

Andrew Milton wrote:
> +-------[ Philipp von Weitershausen ]----------------------
> |
> | Handing over ownership to the ZF and therefore having signed a
> | Contributor Agreement are the terms of the svn.zope.org repository, just
> | like that code is to be made ZPL. 
> 
> The license part is irrelevant after you've signed over the IP.
> 
> | These are the rules of the repository, even today (except for s/ZF/ZC).
> 
> This is for the core product. This is not add-on code. It makes sense for the
> core product.
> 
> | If you're not happy with that, then use
> | your another repository. Nobody is forcing you to put your stuff there.
> 
> Indeed. Anyone that wants to try is welcome to come around and have a go d8)

FWIW, Martijn and I did this with the z3base (http://codespeak.net/z3).

> | Putting stuff into svn.zope.org *does* have advantages:
> | 
> | * it's easy to feed packages upstream to Zope for a later inclusion into
> | a Zope distribution.
> 
> Putting into svn isn't the same as requiring IP handover. You can still put
> things into the repository without IP handover.
> 
> | * putting a project/package under the wings of the ZF ensures long-term
> | IP protection
> 
> How? I think my death + 70 years is further away than the death of ZF, or in
> fact the death of Zope.

But the end of your commitment to this particular software and/or Zope
might not be so far. Hunting developers down for getting their approval
of a license change or something like that after 5 years or so would be
a considerable pain.

> | * code in svn.zope.org will be under the common control of the Zope
> | developers which makes long-term maintenance easier to ensure.
> 
> This has nothing to do with handing over IP either. Noone disputes that the
> Zope Developers lives will be easier if things are in a central svn. Why this
> should require someone to hand over their IP to ZF is a mystery.

I never said the advantages of putting stuff into svn.zope.org
necessarily have to have anything to do with handing over IP (actually,
it's joint-ownership so it's sharing IP).

> | * the common license (ZPL) and the common ownership of the ZF do away
> | with some legal headaches...
> 
> The ONLY legal headache common ownership does away with, is that ZC or ZF (or
> future owners) are free to change the license without asking permission of the
> original author. The license itself is irrelevant, it doesn't apply to the
> copyright holder.
> 
> IP "sharing" certainly has no advantages to the original author. Any lawsuit
> arising from some problem with the code would almost certainly name all stakeholders.
> 
> Repository of 3rd party code? Great Idea.
> Packaging standards? Great Idea.
> Compliance Rating? Great Idea.
> 
> Requiring IP Handover? Makes a mockery of the Open Source movement. 

Plone does it, ASF does it, FSF does it. Seems to work. Note that with
ZC (and I presume this will continue with the ZF) it's joint-ownership,
not a total handover.

> Why should Mark Shuttleworth who has plenty of means, hand over IP for (parts of) 
> SchoolTool?

Good question. Why would Zope Corporation hand over IP of Zope to the
Zope Foundation? Why would we contribute code to the Plone Foundation or
anyone else? In order to put the code under public govenance.


Anyways, you're welcome to contribute code to the z3base if you'd prefer
a public repository that doesn't require IP handover/sharing. Who knows,
perhaps we'll even manage to implement the ZSCP for some packages there :).

Philipp