Re: The future of the Subversion book

[Branko Čibej <br...@apache.org>]

On 06.09.2018 15:25, Branko Čibej wrote:
> On 06.09.2018 15:10, C. Michael Pilato wrote:
>> On 09/05/2018 04:49 PM, Mark Phippard wrote:
>>> Assuming the PMC wanted it, is it possible for the book to be
>>> contributed to this project and hosted in the Apache SVN repository?
>>> Many people seem to post questions and issues in these mailing lists
>>> as if it is part of the project anyway so maybe we ought to just
>>> make this the reality.  I guess what I am saying is, before we gauge
>>> opinion on whether we want to bring this into the project, my
>>> question is whether there are any blockers that prevent this on the
>>> book side from being an option?  Such as copyright or licensing
>>> issues that make it not possible.  It feels like this has been
>>> discussed in the past and there were reasons it was kept separate
>>> from the project even after the publishing of the book by O'Reilly
>>> was in the past, but I no longer recall them.
>> Honestly, I think the book belongs with the PMC. It is easy to imagine a
>> day when a developer is expected to provide at least rudimentary
>> documentation updates in the same commit that carries his or her new
>> feature or behavioral change.
>>
>> The book carries a cc-by-2.0 license, with Ben, Fitz and myself named as
>> the copyright holders. I suspect that in order to be absorbed by the
>> PMC, that licensing would have to change to an Apache License. Does that
>> mean that the three primary authors would need to officially re-license
>> it somehow? Or maybe it's a software grant to the ASF (rather like
>> Subversion itself was)?
> We'd have to ask legal@ but I'd be surprised if we'd be required to
> re-license the book; it's not code, and the Apache license isn't really
> suitable. Also we wouldn't really be making releases of it, just updates
> on the web.


I didn't quite forget about this: LEGAL-421

-- Brane

Re: The future of the Subversion book

[Branko Čibej <br...@apache.org>]

On 30.10.2018 14:33, Michael Pilato wrote:
> On 10/27/18 1:12 PM, Branko Čibej wrote:
>> On 18.10.2018 20:40, Branko Čibej wrote:
>>> On 06.09.2018 15:25, Branko Čibej wrote:
>>>> On 06.09.2018 15:10, C. Michael Pilato wrote:
>  >>>>
>>>>> The book carries a cc-by-2.0 license, with Ben, Fitz and myself named as
>>>>> the copyright holders. I suspect that in order to be absorbed by the
>>>>> PMC, that licensing would have to change to an Apache License. Does that
>>>>> mean that the three primary authors would need to officially re-license
>>>>> it somehow? Or maybe it's a software grant to the ASF (rather like
>>>>> Subversion itself was)?
>  >>>
>>>> We'd have to ask legal@ but I'd be surprised if we'd be required to
>>>> re-license the book; it's not code, and the Apache license isn't really
>>>> suitable. Also we wouldn't really be making releases of it, just updates
>>>> on the web.
>>> I didn't quite forget about this: LEGAL-421
>> The answer to this question appears to be that we should relicense the
>> book before importing it into our repository. I suppose that means the
>> original authors, and any other major contributors, should create a
>> Software Grant.
> I don't expect that there would be any problem getting Fitz and Ben to 
> join me in such an exercise.  There's no question in my mind that we 
> hold between the three of us the lion's (and tiger's, and bear's, oh 
> my!) share of the authorship of the English text of the book.
>
> How does this affect the translations, though?  Besides the old 
> translations long since completed (or abandoned), we have a handful of 
> active translations ongoing -- some doing their initial passes over the 
> text, some simply touching up their translations as changes are made in 
> the English originals.  What is the impact on translators in the event 
> that the book's development moves into the Apache Subversion repository?

I'm sure we can give them (partial) commit access to the book, if
they're willing to relicense in the same way. We'll need an ICLA from
any of them who're not Apache committers yet, of course. I don't see
that contributing to book translations is any different from
contributing to other parts of our source tree. We've been doing
something similar for message translators for ... what is it now, 18
years and counting? (Yes, Subversion is now of "legal age," whatever
that means...)

-- Brane

Re: The future of the Subversion book

[Michael Pilato <cm...@collab.net>]

On 10/27/18 1:12 PM, Branko Čibej wrote:
> On 18.10.2018 20:40, Branko Čibej wrote:
>> On 06.09.2018 15:25, Branko Čibej wrote:
>>> On 06.09.2018 15:10, C. Michael Pilato wrote:
 >>>>
>>>> The book carries a cc-by-2.0 license, with Ben, Fitz and myself named as
>>>> the copyright holders. I suspect that in order to be absorbed by the
>>>> PMC, that licensing would have to change to an Apache License. Does that
>>>> mean that the three primary authors would need to officially re-license
>>>> it somehow? Or maybe it's a software grant to the ASF (rather like
>>>> Subversion itself was)?
 >>>
>>> We'd have to ask legal@ but I'd be surprised if we'd be required to
>>> re-license the book; it's not code, and the Apache license isn't really
>>> suitable. Also we wouldn't really be making releases of it, just updates
>>> on the web.
>>
>> I didn't quite forget about this: LEGAL-421
> 
> The answer to this question appears to be that we should relicense the
> book before importing it into our repository. I suppose that means the
> original authors, and any other major contributors, should create a
> Software Grant.

I don't expect that there would be any problem getting Fitz and Ben to 
join me in such an exercise.  There's no question in my mind that we 
hold between the three of us the lion's (and tiger's, and bear's, oh 
my!) share of the authorship of the English text of the book.

How does this affect the translations, though?  Besides the old 
translations long since completed (or abandoned), we have a handful of 
active translations ongoing -- some doing their initial passes over the 
text, some simply touching up their translations as changes are made in 
the English originals.  What is the impact on translators in the event 
that the book's development moves into the Apache Subversion repository?

-- Mike

Re: The future of the Subversion book

[Branko Čibej <br...@apache.org>]

On 18.10.2018 20:40, Branko Čibej wrote:
> On 06.09.2018 15:25, Branko Čibej wrote:
>> On 06.09.2018 15:10, C. Michael Pilato wrote:
>>> On 09/05/2018 04:49 PM, Mark Phippard wrote:
>>>> Assuming the PMC wanted it, is it possible for the book to be
>>>> contributed to this project and hosted in the Apache SVN repository?
>>>> Many people seem to post questions and issues in these mailing lists
>>>> as if it is part of the project anyway so maybe we ought to just
>>>> make this the reality.  I guess what I am saying is, before we gauge
>>>> opinion on whether we want to bring this into the project, my
>>>> question is whether there are any blockers that prevent this on the
>>>> book side from being an option?  Such as copyright or licensing
>>>> issues that make it not possible.  It feels like this has been
>>>> discussed in the past and there were reasons it was kept separate
>>>> from the project even after the publishing of the book by O'Reilly
>>>> was in the past, but I no longer recall them.
>>> Honestly, I think the book belongs with the PMC. It is easy to imagine a
>>> day when a developer is expected to provide at least rudimentary
>>> documentation updates in the same commit that carries his or her new
>>> feature or behavioral change.
>>>
>>> The book carries a cc-by-2.0 license, with Ben, Fitz and myself named as
>>> the copyright holders. I suspect that in order to be absorbed by the
>>> PMC, that licensing would have to change to an Apache License. Does that
>>> mean that the three primary authors would need to officially re-license
>>> it somehow? Or maybe it's a software grant to the ASF (rather like
>>> Subversion itself was)?
>> We'd have to ask legal@ but I'd be surprised if we'd be required to
>> re-license the book; it's not code, and the Apache license isn't really
>> suitable. Also we wouldn't really be making releases of it, just updates
>> on the web.
>
> I didn't quite forget about this: LEGAL-421

The answer to this question appears to be that we should relicense the
book before importing it into our repository. I suppose that means the
original authors, and any other major contributors, should create a
Software Grant.

-- Brane