legal issues (was Re: [DotGNU]A good warning?)

[Bradley M. Kuhn]

[Sorry to chime in on an old thread, but I just got through all the
 developers list email, and thought this should be addressed.]

> On Mon, Jul 09, 2001 at 01:21:28PM -0500, Matthew Copeland wrote:
> > -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > Special note
> >
> > If you have looked at Microsoft's implementation of .NET or their shared
> > source code, you will not be able to contribute to Mono.
> >
> > Please, follow care when reading code
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------

> > You know, I saw this on the ximian website for contributing to mono, and
> > it could be very worthwhile to us to add something similar to our website,
> > so that we don't get into any nasty situations with lawsuits from
> > Microsoft.  We all konw how Microsoft tactics work when it comes to
> > competitors.
>

Dave Sherohman <address@hidden> wrote:

> While I can certainly accept that level of paranoia, I suspect that it
> may only be necessary to exclude those who have seen the current
> implementation's source code.


I think the best approach on this matter is to decide these issues on a
case-by-case basis.  We can ask new contributors (once we start writing
code or documents) up front what they have seen or done with
non-GPL-compatible (including proprietary software) related to
Microsoft.NET.


We don't want a rule that says: "If you have done this, this and that, you
cannot work on this project".  Instead, we want people to be up-front
about what they have seen and read, and have the discussion about what
that means for the project.


The legal issues of software copyright licenses are complex.  We at the
FSF take certain positions about it.  In each case, we decide to act in
the way that we feel will most likely defend software freedom in court.
Since the issues around Free Software Microsoft.NET implementations are
worrisome (mainly because Microsoft is already making rumblings about
licensing), we should simply have the conversation with each new
developer.


To do this, simply ask the new developer to write a summary of what
code/documentation that have seen and used, and what EULA's they've agreed
to regarding Microsoft.NET-related.  You can have the new developer write
this information to me at first, and if the issue is complex, I can
escalate to our legal counsel, Eben Moglen.

The important thing is not to have hard and fast rules about it, but to
have the conversation when each person contributes code/documentation to
the project, so we can know up front what risks (if any) we are taking,
and decide accordingly.

Note that we don't have to address this until code is actually written.  I
am currently addressing this right now with Rhys Weather, author of
Portable.NET, because AFAIK, he's the only who has code on the table.

--
Bradley M. Kuhn, Vice President
Free Software Foundation     |  Phone: +1-617-542-5942
59 Temple Place, Suite 330   |  Fax:   +1-617-542-2652
Boston, MA 02111-1307  USA   |  Web:   http://www.gnu.org

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