Way forward with FSF

[Jonathan Larmour]

Andrew Lunn wrote:
>>The idea is that instead of assigning to RH, contributors could assign 
>>direct to individual maintainers. When the FSF is sorted out, the 
>>individual maintainer(s) will assign everything at that point to the FSF. 
>>Another possibility is to assign to eCosCentric, and eCosCentric would 
>>make a public commitment to assign to the FSF immediately once everything 
>>is going. That might be easier logistically, but I can understand it if 
>>others here are hesitant about this. But the public commitment may address 
>>this.
> 
> 
> An assignment is a two way thing. Both the assignee and assigner
> agree. It would be simple to add a section to the assignemt which says
> that eCosCentric agrees to transfer the assignment to FSF imeadiately
> they agree to accept the assignments for eCos. This should remove most
> peoples worries.

That's tricky actually. Ownership is either given or not given. It's 
strictly legally not possible to set such future conditions. Once the 
assigned-to maintainer or eCosCentric has it, I don't believe it's 
possible to set obligations on it within the legal assignment contract 
itself. Think of it this way: what would be the redress if the assignee 
reneged on it - they already own the code so it's not possible to take it 
back (in law).

More practically, we'd want legal advice to change the assignment contract 
itself.

> I suppose we should also consider what happens if it all falls through
> with FSF. They change there mind, or say they don't have the resources
> needed to sort this out until this SCO thing is sorted out, they go
> bankrupt paying legal fees, get burnt down in a bush fire,... The
> assignments are then in limbo, being held by eCosCentric waiting to be
> tranferred to somewhere they cannot go.

I see your point, but I don't think we really have many alternatives. The 
public commitment isn't a legal thing, but since eCosCentric is focussed 
on eCos users, pissing off the entire eCos community in one fell swoop 
isn't exactly likely to be part of the agenda :-) (and I wouldn't be here 
if it was even considered!). If the maintainers collectively decide on a 
different course of action eCosCentric would abide by that. Thinking about 
it, it's arguably safer for eCosCentric to do it as eCosCentric has face 
to lose, meaning lost business, whereas an individual maintainer could 
theoretically start setting nasty preconditions and having the rest of the 
maintainers over a barrel. But that's probably academic as we all have 
code copyright ourselves in the code base anyway so there'd be problems 
whatever.

>>To be clear, this isn't an attempt to take over :-). All your eCos do not 
>>belong to us :).  As such, if any other maintainer wants to accept 
>>assignments (and put up their mail, phone, fax details on the web, mail 
>>back executed assignment, etc.etc.) then we can easily list more than one 
>>option to contact on the website.
> 
> 
> No thanks. I don't have the resources, willingness etc....

I'm not expecting anyone else to, and there's no real need to as we're 
prepared to do it all... but I want to give people the chance in order to 
show that all we want is the solution, and eCosCentric's, or individual 
maintainers', part in it is just a means to an end.

> One other thing comes to mind. It can be hard for some people to get
> the PHB to sign the assignment. Having to get first an eCosCentric one
> and then an FSF one signed will be double trouble. Maybe something can
> be added to the eCosCentric one so that it can act as an automatic
> forwarder to FSF once they are up an running. Signing the FSF
> assignment then becomes optional for people with an eCosCentric
> assignment.

That might be okay. Although a direct assignment would be preferable 
obviously. We'd need to check with the FSF lawyers as and when this 
becomes an issue.

Similarly I don't expect people with RH assignments to have to switch over 
overnight; although a final deadline may be wise, but again we'll deal 
with that when the time comes.

Jifl
-- 
eCosCentric    http://www.eCosCentric.com/    The eCos and RedBoot experts
--["No sense being pessimistic, it wouldn't work anyway"]-- Opinions==mine