Switching to BSD License, and CLAs

[Adam Mckaig]

hey,

let's get this licensing stuff sorted out once and for all. in the
spirit of forgiveness over permission, i'm going to if you're on cc,
please read this and either do what i ask, or respond with your
objection(s). it's won't take long, and it's quite important that we
get this cleared up.

most of us agreed to switch the rapidsms license from the LGPL to BSD
a while back. so let's get that done. the LGPL does not permit
relicensing, so switching requires all past contributers to
effectively re-release their contributions under the new license, or
grant someone else the right to do so. to kill two birds with one
stone, let's all electronically sign a CLA (contributor license
agreement). this will allow unicef (which seems like a safe
organization to grant this permission to) to release rapidsms under
the new license, and make our jittery friends feel safe using rapidsms
now and in the future.

there aren't that many contributers to the trunk:

[trunk]$ git log --format=format:"%an <%aE>" | sort | uniq
Adam Mckaig <adam....@gmail.com>
Cory Zue <cz...@dimagi.com>
Evan Wheeler <evanmw...@gmail.com>
Jeff Wishnie <je...@wishnie.org>
Mark E Johnston <mejy...@gmail.com>
Mike Edwards <mi...@onearmedman.com>
Schuyler Erle <sderle@goldman.(none)>
Solomon Adebayo <solom...@gmail.com>
Tim Akinbo <tak...@gmail.com>
adammck <adam....@gmail.com>
czue <cz...@dimagi.com>
dimagidan <dmy...@dimagi.com>
dmyung <dmy...@ubuntu.ubuntu-domain>
evan wheeler <ewhe...@abacus.local>
soloz <solom...@gmail.com>
unknown <Cory Zue@.(none)>
unknown <dmyung@.(none)>
unknown <soolz@.(none)>

that's ten people: me, cory, evan, jeff, mark, mike, solomon, tim,
dan, and schuyler. please, each of you, read this CLA, and either
state your objections, or complete the form:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dGtKTGU1bWkwU1ctOEpkdENhaVQ5YkE6MA

anyone else whose work might find its way into the rapidsms trunk
(like matt's mvp guys) should feel free to complete this form, also.
the list above is just a dump from the commits to HEAD, which need to
be signed off before we can change the license and release.

in addition to individual contributors, i assume that both dimagi and
thoughtworks (who've both made contributions to the rapidsms trunk)
hold the title to their employees' contributions, so could a
representative from each organization (jon? jeff?) please complete the
corporate CLA:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dGJPeFh5NTV6NlJjclg1cFRKUFVsQmc6MA

the CLAs are based very closely upon the apache CLAs, which were also
adapted by django and javarosa. there are very few changes to the
wording of either, but diffs between the original apache CLAs and the
rapidsms CLAs are attached. the only changes are:

1. the organization name.
2. a slight crop, to reflect the fact that this is completed online
(unlike the Apache CLA, which requires ink on a dead tree).

once we've cleared up any disputes which are raised here, and gotten
everyone signed on, we can switch over the license to BSD. (patch
attached; i'll add it to the issue tracker later.) for the skeptical,
the django foundation have a very good FAQ detailing why a CLA is
necessary, at:
http://www.djangoproject.com/foundation/cla/faq

any questions?

</adam>

[Jonathan Jackson]

Awesome Adam, thanks.  I've signed it for Dimagi.  Can we add links to this list to github as well as links to sign up if you are going to provide a patch?  We should also make sure all core committers know not to approve anything that is from someone who has not signed off on the CLA.

Cheers,
Jonathan

On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 10:40 PM, Jeff Wishnie <je...@wishnie.org> wrote:

Hi Adam,

First off: Yeah! very glad to see this getting cleaned up!

Second:

Can you provide a Copyright/License notice that we should include in the top of all source files?

I think part of the clean-up needs to be adding this to everything...

- Jeff

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<UNICEF-INDIVIDUAL-CLA.dwdiff><UNICEF-CORPORATE-CLA.dwdiff><0001-switched-to-BSD-license.patch>

[renaud gaudin]

On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 4:05 AM, Jonathan Jackson <jjac...@dimagi.com> wrote:
> Awesome Adam, thanks.  I've signed it for Dimagi.  Can we add links to this
> list to github as well as links to sign up if you are going to provide a
> patch?  We should also make sure all core committers know not to approve
> anything that is from someone who has not signed off on the CLA.

Great!
I am not sure we've had code into the trunk but I signed it anyway.

About requiring this for future contributions, I think we have two choice :

- Just inform contributor that RapidSMS is BSD-licensed and every
contribution should be BSD.
- Ask every contributor to give rights to UNICEF and UNICEF will
license it the way it feels.

I think the first one is better because:
- doesn't require someone at unicef to care about that
- BSD is permissive enough to allow anyone in the future to relicense it.

That said, I am OK with second one too ; as long as it is unicef and
not some for-profit company.

[Schuyler Erle]

On Wed, 2009-11-25 at 06:19 +0300, Adam Mckaig wrote:

> that's ten people: me, cory, evan, jeff, mark, mike, solomon, tim,
> dan, and schuyler. please, each of you, read this CLA, and either
> state your objections, or complete the form:
> https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dGtKTGU1bWkwU1ctOEpkdENhaVQ5YkE6MA

Adam, thanks for taking this step, I have already signed it. Would you
please post a public URL to the list of CLA signatures, so we can all
keep track? Thanks!

SDE

[Adam Mckaig]

hey schuyler,

the public views are here:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tkJLe5mi0SW-8JdtCaiT9bA&output=html
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tbOxXy55z6RcrX5pTJPUlBg&output=html

</adam>

[Adam Mckaig]

fyi, i just pushed the new license to the trunk.
http://github.com/rapidsms/rapidsms/commit/c706c11

</adam>