On Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 03:13:01AM +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > On 06/28/2011 03:07 AM, Jared K. Smith wrote: > > The FPCA has been discussed by the Board in several of our meetings > > over the past several months. Lately the FPCA discussion has mostly > > centered around the implementation details and status updates, but you > > can well imagine that it would be hard to change something like the > > CLA->FPCA without getting the Board's attention > > I understand that. Perhaps I should have been more clear. Did the > Board start with the assumption that FPCA is necessary and move on to > discuss the implementation details or were the board members convinced > that it was necessary and there is sufficient justification for it in > the first place, enough to get every contributor to sign it > compulsorily? Is the Fedora Board willing to entertain a alternative > proposal that has no implicit "default license" but accepts any Free > software license (acceptable by the licensing guidelines) that is > explicit? My fundamental disagreement with the FPCA is based on the > principle that implicit licenses are hidden and non-obvious to > contributors, especially those who exist outside the Fedora world and > want to reuse what we create (spec files etc). > The FPCA was first discussed with the Board before I was on it. My recollection of that time period (from an outsiders perspective) was that spot presented the problems with the CLA and gave the FPCA text as a replacement that Red Hat Legal would like us to replace it with. If that's an accurate reflection, then the underlying assumption that the text was needed at all would not have been challenged. However, the assumption that a text like the FPCA was needed at all was a subject for consideration when the CLA itself was debated as being needed, what constituted "signing" the agreement, etc. This would have been many years ago and lasted for some time -- starting with the fax in CLA, progressing through gpg signing, the idea of click through agreement for the wiki, form-based signing in FAS, etc. Regarding your three points, I think that the Board is likely to lean heavily on the advice given to it from Red Hat Legal and spot (under the assumption that spot carries points that need clarification to Red Hat Legal when necessary) for anything legal related. So: a) prominent splash "A Red Hat Community Project". It seems that this is more marketing/PR/a proper acknowledgment of who is supporting us than a legal issue. So the Board probably can consider changing this without spot and Red Hat Legal input. OTOH, I liked the clarification questions that Richard Fontana asked here: http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/advisory-board/2011-June/010787.html so it could be good to get a little more dialog there and then present to the Board. b) Copyright notice, "Red Hat, Inc and others" => "Fedora Project Contributors": From the docs list conversation and Richard Fontana's post on this list, it seems fine to change this (and the intent the rewording expresses is something I like). spot seems to have reservations, however. The best outcome would be for spot and rfontana to talk about this and present their opinion on changing to the Board. Alternately, the Board could directly request that spot ask Red Hat Legal if they agree with us changing the wording on the Fedora Websites. c) whether the FPCA needs to be signed to contribute to docs/design team/etc. I haven't read anything from Red Hat Legal saying that this isn't a good idea to keep enforcing. If you want this to be an official Board Issue, I would request that it is separate from the other two points above. I don't think I'd vote to change the requirement without hearing from spot or Fedora Legal that relaxing this requirement at this time is something that they consider desirable. I'd be more open to discussing at the Board level if there's ways that we can lower the barrier of what is considered "signing the agreement" if it still seems to be too high. That might result in purely technical changes (simplifying the FAS interface somehow or what is necessary to submit something on the wiki) or something that the Board would write up as a specific question to ask of Red Hat Legal. -Toshio
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