Nicola Ken Barozzi wrote:
> Dave Brondsema wrote:
> ...
> > Thanks, that helped a lot.
> >
> > My biggest concern would be the direct responsibility for legal issues.
> > Obviously we know our code best so our own PMC would be well suited from
> > that perspective. But we're not lawyers. Even licensing questions can
> > get very confusing. So I don't know how qualified any of us would be to
> > be responsible from that perspective.
>
> We are responsible does not mean that we cannot ask for help to the
> licensing@apache.org list. What we have to ensure is that the Apache
> rules about licensing are always met, we don't have to invent new ones.
And we have a duty to raise any concern directly to the Board.
At the moment we still are bound to do that, but we do it via
the XML PMC.
Here is another very useful message from Stefano when Cocoon
was proposed to be a top-level project:
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=xml-cocoon-dev&m=103599230901129
There is a special part that i want to raise in response to
Dave's important concern ...
<quote>
2) what does it mean for the developers?
An official Cocoon project will have an official PMC which is what is
legally reponsible for the code and reports directly to the board. The
PMC officer becomes a vice-president of the ASF.
In order to avoid stupid PMC elections, I'll be in favor of having the
PMC composed by *all* committers that ask to be part of it. This to
imply that committers and legal protector share the same duties and
priviledges.
In short, it means that if any of us screws legally, the foundation will
protect us. Today, this is not the case.
</quote>
Now someone correct me if i am wrong. My interpretation is that,
as committers, we are already responsible for stuff that gets
committed to our repositories. When we committers join the new
Forrest PMC, then we gain legal protection from the ASF.
--David
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