Good list.
I would like to expand on it,
I belive that in order to change the licence one would need to do something
like:
1) identify the goals.
2) produce a new licence with very clearly defined exceptions on what
is allowed and what is not allowed.
Get proper legal advise to verify that the new licence is actually
enforceable adn does not contain
loop-holes. Well, one could argue that GPL has not been verified either but
it is the best we have
right now.
3) with proper legal advise, analyze all risks with changing the licence
according to 2), that is
what loop-holes may be present.
Do a proper risk analysis.
Also analyse or provide information covering the risks that the ethereal
developers take:
IF the license is changed in such a way that sometime down the road a
loop-hole is found and abused
WHO is liable to compensate the developers for their unpaid work or
dissapointment IF such an extension is abused?
Will someone be prepared to come out two years from now and say, sorry guys
that the licence change
we requested from you had this effect in case something bad happens?
OK, GPL is risky in this regard as well but it is the best we have today.
4) discuss the licence produced in 3). Note, all work in steps 1 to 3 can
be made completely off list.
Present the result from 3) to the list and seek acceptance.
If acceptance can not be acheived go back to 1)
5) Track down every single contributor to ethereal and get them to either
agree or refuse the proposed change.
For every single contributor that does not approve of the license an
analysis must be made describing
every single contribution by that contributor. (This includes also everyone
that can not be reached or tracked, Copyright of a work does not just cease
because you can not find the copyright holder)
6) Replace every contribution from developers that has not approved the
change.
Or if this is too much work, go back to 1 and try again.
7) finished.
1 probably takes a little time.
2 and 3 probably costs a lot of money since legal advise is required.
3 contains an insurance that probably costs a lot of money if someone is to
offer to be responsible to reimbruise all the developers if the licence
change results in something bad.
4, can be discussed on the list.
5 and 6 will take a LOT of time and may require rewrites of large parts of
ethereal.
Who is going to cover the monetary costs? Especially 2 and 3 is probably
going to be expensive.
Who will take responsibility in case the new license is broken?
Who will contribute the potentially significant rewrite in 5-6 ?
The answer to the three questions above is in my case : not I
I think it is difficult enough at this point that it is not realistic to do
a license change ever.
I do NOT agree with the "consensus among the current developers" is enough
to change the license.
IANAL but I really do think that one can not have like a consensus vote to
change someone elses copyright.
Copyrights are valid until x years after an original authors death
(estimated or confirmed?).
I really dont think just because I can not get hold of the author of a
certain work that I then can decide
that his copyright and license can be changed.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Joerg Mayer"
Sent: Friday, November 22, 2002 11:27 AM
Subject: [Ethereal-dev] License change for plugins: Next steps
1) Identify the goals
2) Write a proposed addendum to the License
3) Discuss it
4) goto 2)
5) Write to all the people in the AUTHORS file and ask for consent
(with some introdution as to the why)
Corrections, additions, some writeup of 1 and maybe 2 are encouraged.