maria-discuss team mailing list archive

[Henrik Ingo <henrik.ingo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 5:34 PM, Michael Widenius <monty@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>>>> "Henrik" == Henrik Ingo <henrik.ingo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
>
> Henrik> Hi all
> Henrik> As Monty blogged some time ago
> Henrik> http://monty-says.blogspot.com/2009/08/thoughts-about-dual-licensing-open.html
> Henrik> ...we want to add a promise to our MariaDB contributors signing the
> Henrik> MCA, that we will not use their contributions to restrict other
> Henrik> licensees ability to contribute to Open Source.
>
> Henrik> This text has now been approved by a lawyer. The question is, is it
> Henrik> understandable?
>
> Henrik> **********************************
>
> Henrik> Additional promise to contributions under the Monty Program Contributor
> Henrik> Agreement
>
> Henrik> Monty Program Ab promises to each contributor assigning rights under the Monty
> Henrik> Program Ab Contributor Agreement, that when licensing 'products' (software),
> Henrik> that include a contribution, to other 3rd parties, the license will be either
>
> Henrik>  i) an Open Source license (www.opensource.org), or
> Henrik>  ii) another license, in which case:
>
> Henrik> * the other license will NOT restrict the licensee from making his own
> Henrik> modifications to the product, including adding other suitably licensed code or
> Henrik> other 'materials' from other sources (such as code available under suitable
> Henrik> Open Source licenses)
>
> Henrik> * the license will NOT restrict the licensee from publishing his own code or
> Henrik> other 'materials' including, but not limited to, under an Open Source license.
>
> Henrik> As a special note, it is observed that the Monty Program Ab Contributor
> Henrik> Agreement itself fulfills these requirements. Also note that this promise
> Henrik> does not not extend as a requirement to 3rd parties so as to restrict
> Henrik> their rights to license products containing contributions.
>
> What is the state with the above ?
>
> I still think it's quite long and not much easier to understand that
> what we have now:

Yes.

We got some feedback and 100% indicated it wasn't really understandable.

My current idea is to remove the "as a special note" part, but keep it
as is until then. Ie legally this should be ok as it was approved by
lawyer.

The problem is that nobody understands what it is about. Here I was
thinking we should write a non-legal introduction that explains why on
earth we have this promise. It could also link to your blog, which
should explain a lot. Then have the actual legal promise after the
non-legal intro. I've seen for instance the Red Hat patent promise
does this, and seems to work.

I then of course have not had time to write the intro. (I don't mind
if someone else does it, as long as the legal text is as above, minus
the last paragraph.)

Last step is to link from MCA, and MCA FAQ, to the intro+promise,
which should be one separate page.

henrik
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