| [eclipse.org-planning-council] One More Final Word on Legal Stuff |
|
Europa Project Leads,
Like the fifth book in the increasingly misnamed Hitchhikers Guide Trilogy, here is one more "final" word on the legal stuff. I've Made A Mess. This whole legal and license file thing has become a bit of a mess and it's probably mostly my fault. In an attempt to straighten it out, I write this email. I have vetted this email with Janet (our Legal ace) and Mike (the final authority). You may safely ignore my previous email on the topic and read just this one. Not Evil. First, let me start by saying that we (the EMO) are not trying to annoy you (the committers who make Eclipse useful and great). Nor are we instituting anything new - we're just following the existing Guide to Legal Documents. The only thing that you might consider new is that we're actually putting more effort into checking the validity of the legal documents than we have in the past but, as the policeman said, "just because you've been speeding here for years doesn't make it legal to speed here"... Unfortunate Incorrectness. Second, I have not been entirely correct about all the legal files in some of my earlier emails. That is entirely my fault. And it should lead you to wonder why you should believe anything I say on the topic from here on. An excellent question, one best answered by the fact that I've had Janet and Mike review this email for accuracy. Clear Rules. The Guide to Legal Documents is the defining document about the various legal files required in your features and plug-ins. If you find a section of the Guide to be unclear or confusing, please ask us (Janet and I) to clarify for you. For example, "I don't understand section 4.2 where it says 'should' and yet later says 'must' - which is correct?" or "Section 4.3 doesn't say anything about whether the html files should have html special characters or just pure-ASCII?". We will answer your specific question and we will update the Guide to Legal Documents so that everyone else will also benefit from the answer. About Files. Section 4.2 of the Guide to Legal Documents describes about.html files. You'll see from the text there that about.html files are required for all plug-ins. Correct Before = Correct Now (I). If your about.html files were correct in a previous release AND no new third-party code was added to the plug-ins, then the about.html files are still correct. No date changes are required. Feature Files. Section 4.3 of the Guide to Legal Documents describes the license.html and feature.properties files. You will see in reading that section and section 4.1 (see below for more about section 4.1) that at least four, perhaps five, files are required in each feature:
Section 4.1 and the Software User Agreement. Section 4.1 of the Guide describes the requirement to have a copy of the SUA: "The appropriate SUA and a copy of any referenced license must be located in the root directory of any Eclipse.org distributed build". And because each update manager installable feature is, effectively, "an Eclipse.org distributed build", that means that each update manager feature needs to have a copy of the SUA and any referenced licenses. Europa Build RC3+ Checker Tool. The automated checker tool that I had installed without warning before (that was a mistake) has been revised and will be turned on starting with the Europa RC3+0 build. The automated checker checks that:
Don't "Work Around It." Please, don't just "work around" the whole legal thing. Each time we see an email on a public list or blog that says "I'm just working around the legal issues and not really paying any attention to them", we are forced to institute some new policy or checker tool to fix that hole. The legal world being what it is, we cannot just ignore those statements. So each time someone "works around" the rules, and says so in public, they are just creating more work for everyone involved - for us and for you. If you are not happy with the required legal documentation, please use the constructive techniques of the Eclipse governance model to effect change: talk to your company's Board member and/or your Committer Board representatives. The legal issues are complex, but if we cooperate, I'm sure we can work out better implementations of them for Ganymede and beyond. Ed, In a specific response to you: the legal documents require that you include a license.html in each of your features even though it duplicates the text over and over again. I agree with you that, as a developer, "It would seem to make more sense to refer to a single copy of the license maintained by the foundation and for there to be translations of the license also maintained by the foundation." but that is not the way the legal documents are currently written. As a Committer Board member, I would hope that you can take your experience to the Board and help them revise the legal documents to avoid the wasted bits and bandwidth in the future. Martin, In a specific response to you: "So, they do have internet access at this time, and the chance that they are able to go to the links for reading the lienses is big. For cases where it doesn't work, they can download and inspect the license after downloding". Again, as a developer, I understand the logic of that position, but it is not what the legal documents currently say. Signed, Bjorn (& Janet & Mike) |