Re: AT&T source code agreement
I appreciate the suggestions.
0) Please can you point out the AT&T source code released under a
Debian-compliant license. This might eliminate the need for any more
discussion.
(If it refers to Doug Blewett's contributions to the X11 widget sets? I'm
not that
confident I can stretch the precedent to fit our case.)
1) The termination clause is a significant issue and I will review it with
our attorney.
But how do the Debian Free Software Guidelines address it?
2) The clause about feeding patches back to AT&T is interesting. Why does
it
conflict with this statement in the Debian social contract:
"We will feed back bug-fixes, improvements, user requests, etc. to the
"upstream"
authors of software included in our system"
Is the point that you think this is a good idea, but don't want to be held
to it?
My comment about "not really any other model" (supporting free software
release)
was not a blanket statement toward the community, but merely about how we
were able
to get our particular release done (by claiming the benefit of receiving
outside contributions).
3) Clauses about obeying U.S. law, export law etc. are secondary, as we
agree that
clauses such as "I agree to obey all relevant laws" are superfluous and
perhaps slightly
insulting but don't apparently break the Debian Free Software Guidelines.
A non-binding remark on staying abreast of current patent law is elegant;
I'll see if it's
possible to adopt this as an alternative.
Personally I'm in sympathy with many of the suggestions and their
objectives. I realize that
members of this list are probably quite enthusiastic about license-tuning,
lawyering etc. but
I'd rather be coding :-) and my immediate problem is determine whether the
ASCA 1.2D can
be made compliant with popular "open" or "free" source code guidelines, or
if we have to
back off and try some other approach eventually. As AT&T is principally a
network service
provider and not a software company these days, I do not view this as a
particularly big deal
to anyone except perhaps the software authors here.
Best regards,
Stephen North
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