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Subject: RE: Contributing to RI (SUN) and Apache...
Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2008 09:59:01 -0700
Message-ID: <6039B74637D34D41A1596DC2DCF46C0801050FB7@repbex02.amer.bea.com>
In-Reply-To: <71235db40803270407p3de66fefr12cdd7df0c38871c@mail.gmail.com>
Thread-Topic: Contributing to RI (SUN) and Apache...
Thread-Index: AciP+s/xxTE8zpSsQqehvip5psEzDQALrJlQ
Priority: Urgent
Importance: high
References: <71235db40803270327k4eafa6dbo77a59510abc006ae@mail.gmail.com>
 <94E1BA6A-DBB2-4A88-8DD9-224AD0BF7C2E@pobox.com>
 <71235db40803270407p3de66fefr12cdd7df0c38871c@mail.gmail.com>
From: "Jim Barnett" <jimb@bea.com>
To: "Matthias Wessendorf" <matzew@apache.org>, <legal-discuss@apache.org>

Matthias:

I despise that piece of paper (the Sun SCA) and have counseled my client
(BEA) against signing it for the following reason:

By making Sun co-owner of the rights in the works you contribute, you
enable Sun to do whatever it wants with your contribution and also have
no assurance that the project to which you are contributing will remain
governed by a license you can live with.  The SCA document does not in
any way obligate Sun to put your contribution into any open source
project.  Sun retains control of what goes in.  Sun's co-ownership of
your work, however, allows Sun use your work commercially in non-open
source projects should it choose to do so.  

Likewise, because Sun is co-owner of the rights in all code in any
project covered by an SCA, the license you enjoy today may not be
available to you tomorrow.  As owner, Sun could for example elect to
discontinue the CDDL for Glassfish and instead go with pure,
non-classpath-excepted GPL.  Were your contributions made on behalf of a
commercial software company that was banking on its ability to leverage
the Glassfish code in its products, the SCA makes that a risky gamble.

Sun has been unwilling to make changes to the SCA, even though a couple
of simple changes could minimize the risks cited above.  Two that come
to mind would be (a) agree to use the contribution only in the project
it is earmarked for by the contributor, or not at all, and (b) agree
that no matter what future changes to project licensing Sun elects to
make, the contributor may continue to use all project code under the
licenses available at the time of contribution (i.e., CDDL if that's
what floats your boat).

Putting my grumblings aside, signing the SCA should not have any unique
effect on your work on other projects including those under the Apache
banner.  After all, you still co-own the rights in your contributions
made under the SCA so you are free to do other things with those works
(just as Sun too is free to do as it will with those works).  I would
run the above gripes by your day-job employer to see if the risks
outlined affect their willingness to participate in a Sun project under
an SCA.

Regards,

Jim

  
-----Original Message-----
From: mwessendorf@gmail.com [mailto:mwessendorf@gmail.com] On Behalf Of
Matthias Wessendorf
Sent: Thursday, March 27, 2008 4:07 AM
To: legal-discuss@apache.org
Subject: Fwd: Contributing to RI (SUN) and Apache...

forwarding this to legal discuss

Thanks for the advice, Geir.

-M


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Geir Magnusson Jr. <geir@pobox.com>
Date: Thu, Mar 27, 2008 at 12:02 PM
Subject: Re: Contributing to RI (SUN) and Apache...
To: jcp-open@apache.org


I don't believe so.

 As much as I hate/admire (Good Geir  / Evil Geir) what Sun is doing
 here ("everyone works for us for free!"), it should have no effect on
 anything you do at the ASF.

 You might want to run this past legal-discuss to be doubly sure, but I
 don't expect any problems.

 geir


 On Mar 27, 2008, at 6:27 AM, Matthias Wessendorf wrote:

 > Hi,
 >
 > I work on the Apache MyFaces (JSF implementation), but it happens
that
 > I also need to *patch* (due to day-job)
 > the RI (from Sun), that is (L)GPL / CDDL licensed.
 >
 > Now they want me to sign this paper:
 > http://www.sun.com/software/opensource/sca.pdf
 >
 > Now my big question is... will this have any effects on my
 > contributions to
 > Apache MyFaces' JSF implementation ?
 >
 > Thanks!
 > Matthias
 >
 > --
 > Matthias Wessendorf
 >
 > further stuff:
 > blog: http://matthiaswessendorf.wordpress.com/
 > sessions: http://www.slideshare.net/mwessendorf
 > mail: matzew-at-apache-dot-org


-- 
Matthias Wessendorf

further stuff:
blog: http://matthiaswessendorf.wordpress.com/
sessions: http://www.slideshare.net/mwessendorf
mail: matzew-at-apache-dot-org

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