[Nagiosplug-devel] porposal to clarify terms of submission

[Karl DeBisschop]

On Fri, 2003-08-22 at 06:33, Voon, Ton wrote:
> I don't fully understand all the copyright issues, but I agree that the
> Nagios Plugin Development Group should bear the responsibility, and thus the
> copyright, of all code distributed.
> 
> As a former contributor, my only request was for a little credit. I don't
> think this should be in the form of comments within the code, but a clear
> document that says this person has made a contribution to the project, like
> what Ethan has done at http://www.nagios.org/contributors.php. This is why I
> always put down the contributor for bug reports or patches in CVS
> statements.

Quite fair. 

I had in practice sort of pushed a certain anonnomity becuse in the
plugins the original practice hade been to attribute each contribution.
The comments in some cases began to overwhelm the code, so that had to
stop. But in retrospect thaht should have causes me to put more emphasis
on an external list like the one Ethan has. And into CVS commits. I will
try to be more diligent about the latter. Perhaps we should also make a
contrbutors page.

> Ton
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Karl DeBisschop [mailto:karl at debisschop.net] 
> > Sent: Friday, August 22, 2003 7:05 AM
> > To: NagiosPlug Devel
> > Subject: [Nagiosplug-devel] porposal to clarify terms of submission
> > 
> > 
> > In the last round of cleanup, I have found a few times where 
> > attribution
> > and current copyright has become murky.
> > 
> > I'd like to clarify things in our public documents so people know what
> > to expect.
> > 
> > In my mind, this is the model under which we operate is as 
> > follows. This
> > is a little scattershot, but should be a basis for comment. 
> > Out of this
> > I hope to formulate some clearer policy statements to be included with
> > the distribution.
> > 
> > COPYRIGHT
> > 
> > When a plugin is accepted, copyright is transferred to the 'Nagios
> > Plugin Developemnt Group." For our part, we will retain credit to the
> > contributor preceding our copyright statement. But I think we should
> > assert copyright as an entity to 1) protect changes we make 2) be in a
> > position to defend copyright if need be [I fear that if some sort of
> > challenge arose, we'd be so busy calrifying rights that we'd be unable
> > to defend those rights].
> > 
> > A plugin becomes elegible for acceptance whenever a 
> > contributor requests
> > that a plugin be placed in contrib (via deposit in the new plugins
> > tracker, or via request for inclusion to the list or to a developer).
> > Simply posting code to the list does not make the plugin eligible -
> > there may be a request to integrate. We should consider 
> > adding a control
> > to the tracker allowing a contirbutor to indicate whether or not the
> > plugin should be integrated.
> > 
> > LICENSE
> > 
> > The plugins are GPL.
> > 
> > All tracker submissions should be GPL.
> > 
> > Other open-source licenses will be tolerated on the mailing lists, but
> > GPL is preferred. Any plugin that becomes integrated or packaged with
> > the plugin must be GPL, however.
> > 
> > RECONCILIATION
> > 
> > When I took over development of the plugins a few years back, 
> > there was
> > no sense of there being a development group. I made judgment 
> > calls about
> > how to assign copyrights based on the degree to which I had modified a
> > plugin. In retrospect I could/should have done better. But 
> > that's water
> > under the bridge. 
> > 
> > Nonetheless, once these issues are documented, we should make 
> > an effort
> > to contact the original contributors to be sure they do not 
> > feel we are
> > infringing their rights. I'm not worried here - they were submitted
> > under GPL. But I feel respect for other's contributions requires us to
> > make the effort to document that there is no objection to our 
> > asserting
> > copyright on the derived GPL'd work.
> > 
> > INFRINGEMENT
> > 
> > We should make explicit statements that no infringement of 
> > intellectual
> > property will be tolerated. There should be some indication of that on
> > the tracker used to submit contributed plugins. I am at a loss for how
> > this might be 'enforced'. At a minimum, we should request that if any
> > party sees a possible infringement, they should bring it to our
> > attention so it may be examined and corrected if need be.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > Any and all comments appreciated.
> > 
> > --
> > Karl 
> 
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