Re: NDA issues and acceptable use of sun source

[Geir Magnusson Jr <ge...@pobox.com>]

Leo Simons wrote:
> Vorbis is cool :-)
> 
> Thanks for thinking this stuff through and being careful about protecting
> everyone and yourself from legal mess.
> 
> IANAL. Not Legal Advice.
> 
> On Sat, Feb 11, 2006 at 12:08:20AM +0100, Tor-Einar Jarnbjo wrote:
>>> Which code, and what were the terms of the NDA?  The CLA is fairly 
>>> lightwieght.
>> Good questions, I honestly don't know. Working as a Java developer, I 
>> now and then need to trace into the original source code or take a look 
>> or two at the API implementation to realize why something is not working 
>> as I expect. As far as I can remember, I have not done this with Sun's 
>> JavaSound implementation.
> 
> If you put a notice to that effect onto your authorized contributor form
> that should probably be fine. If you can't remember what bit of the
> implementation you looked at, chances are you also don't remember what you
> saw! Sun has repeatedly and publicly stated that this kind of usage should
> not "taint" a developer.

I'm not so sure - the fact that there's been that exposure under NDA 
means there can be no contribution in that area until the NDA problem is 
resolved.

> 
>> I don't have the NDA anymore, or am at least 
>> not able to find it, having moved around several times the last ten 
>> years.
> 
> Chances are that the NDA is either
> 
>  * expired, or
>  * voided
> 
> Since the JDK stuff is now all mostly out in the public, and most NDAs
> are effectively voided once the information they are meant to protect is
> available through other means not involving an NDA.

That is a possible out.

> 
> If you want to be certain, you can probably get in touch with sun legal
> and figure out if the NDA still applies, and to what. I would hope *they*
> still have a copy somewhere...
> 
>> For working on a JavaSound implementation, it is probably 
>> irrelevant anyway, as JavaSound was not introduced until Java 1.3 and 
>> ought not to be covered by any agreement in Sun's NDA.
> 
> That sounds sensible. Based on the situation you have outlined in your
> emails, I don't think we should have a problem integrating your stuff
> and having you work on it here. I for sure will get pissed if this would
> get us into any kind of trouble and be happy to throw some ASF legal
> cycles at getting justice! :-)

If what you were exposed to under the NDA has no tie to what you are 
offering, then the NDA is irrelevant for this.  For other things, you 
still have a problem, but if you've never seen Sun code in and around 
the sound API, then you are fine.

geir

Re: NDA issues and acceptable use of sun source

[Leo Simons <ma...@leosimons.com>]

Thinking about this some more, it probably makes sense for Tor to contact
the software freedom law center at 

  http://www.softwarefreedom.org/
  help _at_ softwarefreedom _dot_ org

directly. Helping with this kind of stuff is an explicit part of their
mission. Everything that happens e.g. after a CLA / grant is signed is then
part of what Apache has all the right things in place for to take care of.

cheers,

Leo

Re: NDA issues and acceptable use of sun source

[Leo Simons <ma...@leosimons.com>]

On Mon, Feb 13, 2006 at 01:49:34PM +0100, Tor-Einar Jarnbjo wrote:
> Geir Magnusson Jr schrieb:
> >>>I'm not so sure - the fact that there's been that exposure under NDA 
> >>>means there can be no contribution in that area until the NDA 
> >>>problem is resolved.
> >>
> >>Which means? Do I have to solve it or are you willing to solve it?
> >
> >Geir Magnusson Jr wrote:
> >
> >Are you kidding?
> 
> Of course I am not kidding. I am willing to offer a contribution, you 
> say that an issue has to be resolved to allow that and I ask who is 
> going to do that. Do you expect from your contributors to pay for legal 
> advice to be allowed to do non-profit work for you?

I don't think there has ever been a (potential) contributor to the ASF
who has asked for monetary support and/or reimbursement to take care of
any kind of legal issue. There's certainly not an established process
for handling those requests.

But your question is phrased a little differently from how the ASF tends
to think about things. There is no-one doing non-profit work "for" the ASF,
everyone is doing it for their own reasons (usually: they enjoy it, think
its important, are paid to by a company, ..). The ASF provides a whole bunch
of stuff (like hosting, advice, oversight, legal framework) but historically
has tried to do most of that with as little money changing hands aas
possible.

The ASF does have legal counsel (quite a bit on a pro bono basis I
believe) for helping resolve these kinds of issues, but none of that
counsel is German.

Even if the ASF would be willing to pay for legal costs with regard to
figuring out your NDA situation (Really. I think we've never done that.
Never thought about it either. Probably never came up before...), the
person to take care of all the details would still be you. There is no
kind of "staff" around here that takes care of this. The entity responsible
in the end is also still you, and *you* assert you've taken care of things
properly by signing the CLA.

Me, *I* think it'd be great if sun legal would just take care of any
legal costs. I do promise to blog about it if they do :-)

Gotta love open source!

LSD

Re: NDA issues and acceptable use of sun source

[Geir Magnusson Jr <ge...@pobox.com>]

Tor-Einar Jarnbjo wrote:
> Geir Magnusson Jr schrieb:
> 
>>>
>>>> I'm not so sure - the fact that there's been that exposure under NDA 
>>>> means there can be no contribution in that area until the NDA 
>>>> problem is resolved.
>>>
>>>
>>> Which means? Do I have to solve it or are you willing to solve it?
>>
>> Geir Magnusson Jr wrote:
>>
>> Are you kidding?
> 
> Of course I am not kidding. I am willing to offer a contribution, you 
> say that an issue has to be resolved to allow that and I ask who is 
> going to do that. Do you expect from your contributors to pay for legal 
> advice to be allowed to do non-profit work for you?

I expect contributors to understand their legal situation and represent 
it clearly and openly to the community.  There is no way I or anyone 
else here can figure out what kind of NDA you are under.

If you are comfortable that the NDA you signed could not have any 
bearing on the code you want to contribute, because of the fact that the 
area in which you contribute didn't exist at the time of the NDA and 
therefore couldn't be covered, than that seems like a reasonable 
explanation to me and there should be no problem.


geir

Re: NDA issues and acceptable use of sun source

[Tor-Einar Jarnbjo <To...@Jarnbjo.de>]

Geir Magnusson Jr schrieb:

>>
>>> I'm not so sure - the fact that there's been that exposure under NDA 
>>> means there can be no contribution in that area until the NDA 
>>> problem is resolved.
>>
>>
>> Which means? Do I have to solve it or are you willing to solve it?
>
> Geir Magnusson Jr wrote:
>
> Are you kidding?

Of course I am not kidding. I am willing to offer a contribution, you 
say that an issue has to be resolved to allow that and I ask who is 
going to do that. Do you expect from your contributors to pay for legal 
advice to be allowed to do non-profit work for you?

Tor

Re: NDA issues and acceptable use of sun source

[Geir Magnusson Jr <ge...@pobox.com>]

Tor-Einar Jarnbjo wrote:
> Geir Magnusson Jr wrote:
> 
>> I'm not so sure - the fact that there's been that exposure under NDA 
>> means there can be no contribution in that area until the NDA problem 
>> is resolved.
> 
> Which means? Do I have to solve it or are you willing to solve it?

Are you kidding?

> It is 
> of course silly of me not to keep legal agreements I have signed, but as 
> Leo pointed out, is Sun not anymore requiring an NDA for other people to 
> get access to the JDK source code.


> 
>> If what you were exposed to under the NDA has no tie to what you are 
>> offering, then the NDA is irrelevant for this.  For other things, you 
>> still have a problem, but if you've never seen Sun code in and around 
>> the sound API, then you are fine. 
> 
> I do of course not remember anything of any source code I had in my 
> hands ten years ago. I even quite often forget in the afternoon what I 
> did before lunch. I am not sure however, if Sun's lawyers believe that 
> and I rather don't want to find out.
> 
> Tor
> 
> 

Re: NDA issues and acceptable use of sun source

[Tor-Einar Jarnbjo <To...@Jarnbjo.de>]

Geir Magnusson Jr wrote:

> I'm not so sure - the fact that there's been that exposure under NDA 
> means there can be no contribution in that area until the NDA problem 
> is resolved.

Which means? Do I have to solve it or are you willing to solve it? It is 
of course silly of me not to keep legal agreements I have signed, but as 
Leo pointed out, is Sun not anymore requiring an NDA for other people to 
get access to the JDK source code.

> If what you were exposed to under the NDA has no tie to what you are 
> offering, then the NDA is irrelevant for this.  For other things, you 
> still have a problem, but if you've never seen Sun code in and around 
> the sound API, then you are fine. 

I do of course not remember anything of any source code I had in my 
hands ten years ago. I even quite often forget in the afternoon what I 
did before lunch. I am not sure however, if Sun's lawyers believe that 
and I rather don't want to find out.

Tor