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Posted to dev@felix.apache.org by "Roy T. Fielding" <fi...@gbiv.com> on 2005/07/17 12:47:07 UTC
Oscar OSGi Project and required CLAs
[first try bounced due to a pdf attachment]
Message-Id: <43...@gbiv.com>
>>> Like the RFC process the specifications are crafted by a closed
>>> group. However anyone can implement these specifications.
>>
>> I don't see how you came to that conclusion.
>
> I think I would get it from the Specification itself, "Legal Terms and
> Conditions regarding the Specification";
That's impossible. Here are example copyright licenses:
BSD:
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or
without modification, are permitted provided that the following
conditions are met:
Apache:
Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, each
Contributor hereby grants to You a perpetual, worldwide,
non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable copyright
license to reproduce, prepare Derivative Works of, publicly
display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute the
Work and such Derivative Works in Source or Object form.
GPL:
You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's
source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that
you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an
appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep
intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the
absence of any warranty; and give any other recipients of the
Program a copy of this License along with the Program.
Do you see anything even remotely like the above phrases in the
below license to the OSGi specification?
Thank you for your request. The download of OSGi specifications
and specification files are covered by Legal Terms and Conditions
as appended below. Please read these Terms and Conditions.
If you choose to download the OSGi specifications and
specification files you are agreeing to these Legal Terms and
Conditions. To download the OSGi specification, please read the
following Licensing Agreement and then click the link below and
proceed to the download page.
LEGAL TERMS AND CONDITIONS REGARDING SPECIFICATION
Implementation of certain elements of the Open Services Gateway
Initiative (OSGi)Specification may be subject to third party
intellectual property rights, including without limitation,
patent rights (such a third party may or may not be a member
of OSGi). OSGi is not responsible and shall not be held
responsible in any manner for identifying or failing to identify
any or all such third party intellectual property rights.
THE RECIPIENT ACKNOWLEDGES AND AGREES THAT THE SPECIFICATION
IS PROVIDED AS IS AND WITH NO WARRANTIES WHATSOEVER, WHETHER
EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO
ANY WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY, NONINFRINGEMENT, FITNESS OF
ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR ANY WARRANTY OTHERWISE ARISING OUT
OF ANY PROPOSAL, SPECIFICATION, OR SAMPLE. THE RECIPIENT'S USE
OF THE SPECIFICATION IS SOLELY AT THE RECIPIENT'S OWN RISK.
THE RECIPIENT'S USE OF THE SPECIFICATION IS SUBJECT TO THE
RECIPIENT'S OSGi MEMBER AGREEMENT, IN THE EVENT THAT THE
RECIPIENT IS AN OSGi MEMBER. IN NO EVENT SHALL OSGi BE LIABLE
OR OBLIGATED TO THE RECIPIENT OR ANY THIRD PARTY IN ANY MANNER
FOR ANY SPECIAL, NON-COMPENSATORY, CONSEQUENTIAL, INDIRECT,
INCIDENTAL, STATUTORY OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES OF ANY KIND, INCLUDING,
WITHOUT LIMITATION, LOST PROFITS AND LOST REVENUE, REGARDLESS OF
THE FORM OF ACTION, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, TORT, NEGLIGENCE,
STRICT PRODUCT LIABILITY, OR OTHERWISE, EVEN IF OSGi HAS
BEEN INFORMED OF OR IS AWARE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF ANY SUCH
DAMAGES IN ADVANCE. THE LIMITATIONS SET FORTH ABOVE SHALL BE
DEEMED TO APPLY TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE
LAW AND NOTWITHSTANDING THE FAILURE OF THE ESSENTIAL PURPOSE
OF ANY LIMITED REMEDIES AVAILABLE TO THE RECIPIENT.
THE RECIPIENT ACKNOWLEDGES AND AGREES THAT THE RECIPIENT
HAS FULLY CONSIDERED THE FOREGOING ALLOCATION OF RISK AND
FINDS IT REASONABLE, AND THAT THE FOREGOING LIMITATIONS ARE
AN ESSENTIAL BASIS OF THE BARGAIN BETWEEN THE RECIPIENT AND OSGi.
IF THE RECIPIENT USES THE SPECIFICATION, THE RECIPIENT AGREES
TO ALL OF THE FOREGOING TERMS AND CONDITIONS. IF THE RECIPIENT
DOES NOT AGREE TO THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS, THE RECIPIENT
SHOULD NOT USE THE SPECIFICATION AND SHOULD CONTACT OSGi
IMMEDIATELY.
I don't see any license there. Under international copyright law,
recipients must gain permission from the copyright owner in order
to redistribute or create derivative works. The OSGi membership
agreement [1] explicitly states that the MEMBERS
retain ownership on what they do and OSGi is only given the right
to license their employee's work and to sublicense any combined work
to other MEMBERS. Thus, my interpretation is that OSGi does not
have sufficient rights in combined works to simply license them on
their own to the ASF.
[1]
<http://www.osgi.org/join/documents/OSGiMembershipAgreement2004-12
-31.pdf>
Therefore, according to OSGi documentation, we need a separate
CLA from every significant contributor to the code base before
we can distribute that code at Apache.
....Roy
Re: Oscar OSGi Project and required CLAs
Posted by "Roy T. Fielding" <fi...@gbiv.com>.
On Jul 17, 2005, at 10:29 AM, Enrique Rodriguez wrote:
> I'd like to clarify my point here with what I think is the root of the
> issue. The Membership Agreement makes a distinction between DEVELOPED
> MATERIALS and DEVELOPED INVENTIONS. As you initially noted, DEVELOPED
> INVENTIONS are licensable by OSGi only to members. However, DEVELOPED
> MATERIALS may be distributed and sublicensed according to the goals of
> the OSGi charter. In the R4 specification, every contribution has
> been made to OSGi as MEMBER LICENSED MATERIALS, and therefore, falls
> under section 3.2 of the Membership Agreement, wherein OSGi is granted
> "the right and license ... to distribute and sublicense."
DEVELOPED MATERIALS is just the subset of materials to which
copyright law applies and DEVELOPED INVENTIONS is the subset to
which patent law applies. That is the only reason why those
definitions are different in the agreement.
Whoever signs the CLA is granting both copyright and patent licenses
and therefore must have the right to license both to non-members
because our CLA is a license to all recipients of ASF software.
....Roy
Re: Oscar OSGi Project and required CLAs
Posted by Enrique Rodriguez <en...@gmail.com>.
Enrique Rodriguez wrote:
> Roy T. Fielding wrote:
>
>> On Jul 17, 2005, at 4:16 AM, Enrique Rodriguez wrote:
>>
>>> ... we do not expect to need CLAs from any "significant
>>> contributors." Although it is allowed by the OSGi charter (and the
>>> FAQ on the website states members can even charge royalties!), in
>>> practice it is not done, since the other members would balk.
>>
>> I do not understand that statement. Are you saying that nobody
>> other than an OSGi employee contributed copyrightable material
>> or patentable inventions to the final specification? Or are you
>> saying that there is some other agreement that the members have
>> signed that clears such issues for this specification? Or for R4?
>
> Yes, I am saying that for R4 this should be clarified. I say "should"
> meaning nothing has been released in a final version and I am not privy
> to OSGi Alliance proceedings. But, this is the intent as I understand it:
>
> 1) OSGi members providing materials, as well as non-members providing
> specification feedback, license said materials and feedback to OSGi.
Hi, Roy,
I'd like to clarify my point here with what I think is the root of the
issue. The Membership Agreement makes a distinction between DEVELOPED
MATERIALS and DEVELOPED INVENTIONS. As you initially noted, DEVELOPED
INVENTIONS are licensable by OSGi only to members. However, DEVELOPED
MATERIALS may be distributed and sublicensed according to the goals of
the OSGi charter. In the R4 specification, every contribution has been
made to OSGi as MEMBER LICENSED MATERIALS, and therefore, falls under
section 3.2 of the Membership Agreement, wherein OSGi is granted "the
right and license ... to distribute and sublicense."
Enrique
<snip/>
Re: Oscar OSGi Project and required CLAs
Posted by Enrique Rodriguez <en...@gmail.com>.
Roy T. Fielding wrote:
> On Jul 17, 2005, at 4:16 AM, Enrique Rodriguez wrote:
>> ... we do not expect to need CLAs from any "significant
>> contributors." Although it is allowed by the OSGi charter (and the
>> FAQ on the website states members can even charge royalties!), in
>> practice it is not done, since the other members would balk.
>
> I do not understand that statement. Are you saying that nobody
> other than an OSGi employee contributed copyrightable material
> or patentable inventions to the final specification? Or are you
> saying that there is some other agreement that the members have
> signed that clears such issues for this specification? Or for R4?
Yes, I am saying that for R4 this should be clarified. I say "should"
meaning nothing has been released in a final version and I am not privy
to OSGi Alliance proceedings. But, this is the intent as I understand it:
1) OSGi members providing materials, as well as non-members providing
specification feedback, license said materials and feedback to OSGi.
2) OSGi grants rights to "you" via clarifications in the R4 spec, in
particular by a new Terms and Conditions statement that specifically
addresses your concern with the lack of explicit license.
3) Further, specification sources are released under the EPL.
>> 2) Everyone on this thread is reviewing statements on the website and
>> the current specification related to version R3. Our intention is to
>> implement R4, which will be released shortly ... the specification
>> sources will be released under the Eclipse Public License.
>
> That is excellent news. Would it be possible to make a development
> version of that specification (with its EPL terms) available for
> download relatively soon?
Yes, once we have our SVN repo setup ;-). Let me double check, but the
more stable portions of R4 are available in an "Early Draft" form and
"Feedback License" that should allow us to commit this to a repo, or at
least private committers repo.
Relatively soon, we'll hopefully see R4 in a final version, in which
everything should be much better clarified.
I'd like to add that in the event that we need to gather CLA's we are
prepared to do that.
Enrique
Re: Oscar OSGi Project and required CLAs
Posted by "Roy T. Fielding" <fi...@gbiv.com>.
On Jul 17, 2005, at 4:16 AM, Enrique Rodriguez wrote:
> 1) You bring up a very good point that the OSGi Member Agreement
> differs in key ways from the Apache CLA. To your original question
> "Will all of the OSGi members be signing that agreement, or at least
> those with IP claims on the code/specifications?" the answer is that
> none of the OSGi members have IP claims on the code or specifications,
> therefore we do not expect to need CLAs from any "significant
> contributors." Although it is allowed by the OSGi charter (and the
> FAQ on the website states members can even charge royalties!), in
> practice it is not done, since the other members would balk.
I do not understand that statement. Are you saying that nobody
other than an OSGi employee contributed copyrightable material
or patentable inventions to the final specification? Or are you
saying that there is some other agreement that the members have
signed that clears such issues for this specification? Or for R4?
> 2) Everyone on this thread is reviewing statements on the website and
> the current specification related to version R3. Our intention is to
> implement R4, which will be released shortly. The Eclipse foundation
> went through this same debate, as they ship an open-source OSGi R3
> runtime and, contrary to popular belief, they are not an OSGi member,
> the Eclipse Foundation having officially spun off from IBM. The R3
> specification "license" was meant to be very liberal, to allow
> widespread adoption, but, as you note, it ended up not saying enough,
> ie not explicitly stating your right to license this technology.
> Largely due to Eclipse pressure, the next specification version, R4,
> will be be clarifying the OSGi Alliance's position on this matter (so
> the specification is widely adopted) and, in fact, the specification
> sources will be released under the Eclipse Public License.
That is excellent news. Would it be possible to make a development
version of that specification (with its EPL terms) available for
download relatively soon?
....Roy
Re: Oscar OSGi Project and required CLAs
Posted by Enrique Rodriguez <en...@gmail.com>.
Roy T. Fielding wrote:
> Therefore, according to OSGi documentation, we need a separate
> CLA from every significant contributor to the code base before
> we can distribute that code at Apache.
Hi, Roy,
1) You bring up a very good point that the OSGi Member Agreement
differs in key ways from the Apache CLA. To your original question
"Will all of the OSGi members be signing that agreement, or at least
those with IP claims on the code/specifications?" the answer is that
none of the OSGi members have IP claims on the code or specifications,
therefore we do not expect to need CLAs from any "significant
contributors." Although it is allowed by the OSGi charter (and the FAQ
on the website states members can even charge royalties!), in practice
it is not done, since the other members would balk.
2) Everyone on this thread is reviewing statements on the website and
the current specification related to version R3. Our intention is to
implement R4, which will be released shortly. The Eclipse foundation
went through this same debate, as they ship an open-source OSGi R3
runtime and, contrary to popular belief, they are not an OSGi member,
the Eclipse Foundation having officially spun off from IBM. The R3
specification "license" was meant to be very liberal, to allow
widespread adoption, but, as you note, it ended up not saying enough, ie
not explicitly stating your right to license this technology. Largely
due to Eclipse pressure, the next specification version, R4, will be be
clarifying the OSGi Alliance's position on this matter (so the
specification is widely adopted) and, in fact, the specification sources
will be released under the Eclipse Public License.
I am, therefore, confident that we will not have a problem leaving the
incubator w.r.t. licensing issues.
Enrique