Nitobi Contributor Agreement
Jesse MacFadyen
In order for us to make sure that all code contributed is in the clear, and free for the PhoneGap community to use, we now require contributors to sign the attached contributor agreement.
Before submitting code, please read, review and sign the attached agreement.
You may submit a signed scanned copy via email to al...@nitobi.com, to get started immediately.
Nitobi Software
300-247 Abbott Street,
We will be putting a FAQ on the wiki pages sometime in the next week or so. In the meantime if you have any questions feel free to email me directly.
Jann Gobble
The statements:
* "This includes, at our option, the right to assign these same rights or sublicense these same rights to third parties through multiple levels of sub-licensees or other licensing arrangements;"
and
* "you agree that we may register a copyright in your contribution and exercise all ownership rights associated with it;"
This seems to me that Nitobi is trying to exercise the "Waiver — Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder." portion of the CCC License (or similar MIT license) -- in order to lock down and make money off of any submissions to the source code that they get. (see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/MIT/ )
There was a promise made to all of us that PhoneGap and it's source would be made free to the open source community (Andre Charland, CEO of Nitobi). This looks to be as if it is the first step to Nitobi taking ownership of the work of any-and-all submitters...and possibly stopping development of the "open source" version of PhoneGap -- in order to take it private and make a profit from it.
* "Any contribution we make available under any license..."
Does the preceding mean that Nitobi *will* or Nitobi *may* make available their current (and future) work to the rest of the PhoneGap community? I would appreciate some more facts...
Is the MIT license going away? (I see, for example, that this document is licensed under the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ ... )
What is strange about this is that this covers all docs and/or changes to the wiki, etc, by any parties outside Nitobi.
Please enlighten us as to where this is going. "free for the PhoneGap community to use" is quite different from "free for Nitobi to copyright, alter and not release future changes based on our work".
Please tell me I am wrong. I would LOVE to be wrong on this.
Jann
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "phonegap" group.
> To post to this group, send email to phon...@googlegroups.com
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> phonegap+u...@googlegroups.com
> For more options, visit this group at
> http://groups.google.com/group/phonegap?hl=en?hl=en
>
> For more info on PhoneGap or to download the code go to www.phonegap.com<Nitobi Creative Commons Contributor Agreement.pdf>
Jesse MacFadyen
Jikku Jose
As mentioned by Jann I too would love to know that I am wrong and Nitobi is still supporting open source development itself.
Regards,
Jikku Jose
D. Rimron
> Great news, we are getting some great code contributions from the
> community, and growing by the day.
> In order for us to make sure that all code contributed is in the
> clear, and free for the PhoneGap community to use, we now require
> contributors to sign the attached contributor agreement.
are, and remain, in the MIT license - it would not be hard to do this -
especially if you going to insist that people use (the rather flaky and
buggy) githib and you pull from it, etc. - plenty of other open source
software managed to achieve commercial adoption without the need to
"strong-arm" the contributors.
> This will also help us to convince device manufacturers to implement
> the PhoneGap APIs directly on their devices.
you the right to be a dictator, benevolent or otherwise, and this
reassures the people whose primary concern aligns with Scrooge McDuck!
You can assure interested parties that they only have to deal with you,
and PhoneGap is yours. It may sound good to the people holdnig the
purse-strings, but it upsets the mainstream no end.
> Before submitting code, please read, review and sign the attached
> agreement.
It's amazing that the Linux kernel, used all over the place inside
actual devices doesn't do this - I don't recall having to sign away my
rights to patch a subsystem, and I don't think I should have to sign
away my rights to patch yours either. This whole thing _STINKS_ of
Nitobi preparing the ground for a self-serving commercial setup -- not
dissimilar to the way Sun "protects" Java - fearful of a fork that will
make them no longer "king of the hill".
> You will also need to follow-up with physical copy mailed to :
So, now the fact that someone may be willing to give time, effort,
energy and ideas to the project isn't enough they need to own a printer
and pay for international postage so you can reserve the right to claim
ownership to everything they did.
Unless Nitobi has nefarious, self serving and commercial plans afoot
this seems like an entirely improperly thought out scheme (I refrain
myself from calling it a scam) with two sole purposes: filling Nitobi's
wallet and protecting Nitobi's wallet.
You're restricting standard employees (aka: non execs and non directors)
making a contribution to the project by having them sign a document on
behalf of the company -- something most employees don't have a right to do.
You're reducing open source good will.
You're doing something that sticks SO BAD that I'd tempted to solicit
opinion for a fork the project and let people contribute to FREEgap
instead if you continued with this.
If you enforce this I will do _EVERYTHING_ in my power to ensure that
anyone who publicly expresses a public or journalistic interest in the
project is made aware that the project is a tightly controlled by a
commercial interest, Nitobi, and is only free for as long as you can be
bothered to make it so, reserving the rights to "cut it off" at any time
- with a written agreement in place that allows Nitobi to switch the
project to a dual license or another (not MIT) license at any point your
bank manager sees fit.
I presume, of course, you've sent this document out to everyone who has
contributed those "great ideas" already and they have _all_ already
agreed for you own "own their ideas" otherwise you'll be employing
someone to do an entirely clean-room replacement of such code?
And don't even get me started on the IDIOCY of the wording here. The
mailing list is part of the project, bug reports are part of the
project. (since you've not explicitly chosen to name the portions of the
project and its sundries that the agreement covers) If I choose to share
example code snippets of solutions I used to fix problems I encountered
in my applications via the mailing list suddenly you own them? Suddenly
I'm disinclined to help anyone ever again, or my solutions are going to
go offlist, questions are going to "seemingly go unanswered" and there's
no "backlog" of old support.
Aside: I've run your agreement past a Paralegal here in the UK - before
I made this post (yes, they are available at 9am on a Sunday, if you pay
them enough) and her exact words were, "You're being picky, but that's a
lawyers job -- you can guarantee that if Nitobi's lawyers came into play
that's the exact attitude they would take" and if you're going to pull
out legalese and signed contracts someone has to be looking out for the
community, 'cos it certainly don't seem to be you!
-Dx
John Britton
Seems that Nitobi is slowly forgetting to credit at least this mailing list in general:
http://blogs.nitobi.com/andrew/2010/01/30/phonegap-blackberry-on-os-x/
I don't want to be credited for pointing out the above to the list, but it would have been nice to point out that the phoneGap community is working together with Nitobi to improve the solution.
JAB
hari krishna gadiraju
hari krishna gadiraju
Ron Evans
professionally involved with Nitobi. However, as a developer doing
quite a bit of development using PhoneGap for commercial projects, I
am certainly an interested party.
If you investigate similar situations with Contributor License
Agreements (CLA), there are some interesting, informed, and very civil
discussions of them, in some other open source projects that have
encountered this issue:
http://forum.freegamedev.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=64
http://www.adventuresinoss.com/?p=1300
Let the conversation continue...
Regards,
Ron Evans
http://deadprogrammersociety.com
--
Ron Evans
310-597-1013
ron....@gmail.com
Jann Gobble
Anything we forked prior to this agreement (which, actually, is unenforceable in the US considering the previous agreement in place under which we actually downloaded PhoneGap in the first place) is not covered under this agreement. Nitobi is not legally able to retroactively commit people to a new agreement. You are not able to take code-fixes submitted under one license and bind the author to another license. It is illegal in both the US *and* Canada (yes, I checked with a copyright attorney who, like Dx's "paralegal who is up at 9am on a Sunday", is up and willing to go over this at 10am on a Sunday -- it is, after all, Silicon Valley - in his own words.. heh)
If this is Nitobi's response to the contributions (code fixes or bug fixes or suggestions) then I suggest we take the project out of their hands. There is nothing in the MIT license that prevents us from doing so. They cannot change the terms of a license after-the-fact and force people who were working under -- or released intellectual property under -- the previous terms to agree to them. So the PhoneGap that is out there (through 0.8.2 and 0.9.x edge) is *STILL* both FREE and "forkable" for any purpose under the MIT terms (until they remove it from github. I suggest we talk to someone like NachoMan who has an excellent fork of PhoneGap (under the previous license) and who, to date, has not contributed much of that source (and his fixes) back to PhoneGap. We should prod him to see if he is willing to start a new fork under the name "FreeGap" (or similar).
Regarding information/fixes/submissions via Google Groups' PhoneGap List: Nitobi also cannot just TAKE anything we have submitted to this mailing list and call it theirs. That was all done under the terms of the MIT license and Google Groups TOS. In particular Google Groups does not cede copyright of submissions to the "groups" owners:
We, as posters to Google Groups, do NOT cede copyright of our posts -- see section 5 of the Google Groups TOS:
( see http://bit.ly/ggpgtos )
<snip>
You understand that all data, text, information, links and other content (collectively, "Content"), whether posted in public or restricted groups, is the sole responsibility of the person from which such Content originated. This means that you, and not Google, are entirely responsible for all Content that you publish, post, upload, distribute, disseminate or otherwise transmit (collectively, "Post") via the Service.
</snip>
Watch me get kicked off the Google Group PhoneGap list for saying all this. (If you don't hear from me further, then assume I was banned.) Also assume that I will be speaking to other developers about forking and continuing PhoneGap under the original license terms. I have gone to great lengths to learn iPhone Objective-C development in order to participate in, and make better, PhoneGap. Shame to think this was a waste.
Nitobi: If you continue down this path and do not explain yourself more fully to the community in a public forum then I promise that the open source community will be policing you and ensuring that the content we have provided in the mailing list (and under the previous terms & conditions) in no way makes it into your "copyrighted" products and/or source code.
To all who are "not worried" and assume we are "overreacting". What happens when Nitobi takes PhoneGap private and refuses to allow anyone to use it in the future to UPDATE YOUR OWN RELEASED APP (with fixes they have already said they are working on -- or with new functionality)? What happens when Nitobi takes the position of going to Apple and saying "These apps are using our copyrighted frameworks. Remove them please." Now...they have not done this, nor do we hope they will, but they *can try* ... and when/if they do, you are out of a lot of time and effort AND MONEY. This position of requiring submission to a "corporate for-profit authority" (Nitobi) is very scary and not at all in the spirit of Open Source Software.
PS: Ron, the link to:
http://forum.freegamedev.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=64
is great -- and I would NOT object to reassigning to copyright(s) to a non-profit like FSF (which a GREAT history of protecting Open Source) ... but that is a FAR CRY from assigning my copyright to Nitobi who is seeming to prepare to take PhoneGap private! Remember, the FAQ to the FSF's question about "Why does the FSF require that contributors assign copyright to the FSF?" [snipped] gives, as part of their answer, another option if you do not wish to reassign copyright: "or disclaim copyright on it and thus put it in the public domain." I would not object to that. I object to Nitobi NOT offering that option.
Food for thought.
PLEASE feel free to comment.
Jann
Shazron Abdullah
during the weekday.
D. Rimron
> It's the weekend. Let's not overreact until Nitobi can post a response
> during the weekday.
this out at the weekend.....
-Dx
Jann Gobble
Please contact Andre and ask him to respond. Most developers work weekends when this is their main job.
Jann
ade
You may submit a signed scanned copy via email to al...@nitobi.com, to get started immediately.
You will also need to follow-up with physical copy mailed to :
as an expat brit living in spain
two words (that have yet to be said by anybody so i will)
fuck off
ade
...........................................................................................
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duyn
clear, and
free for the PhoneGap community to use, we now require contributors to
sign
the attached contributor agreement.
This will also help us to convince device manufacturers to implement
the
PhoneGap APIs directly on their devices. "
The worst excuse ever to hide Nitobi true intention of licensing
phonegap. Im guessing Nitobi wants phonegap to be free for personal ,
non-commercial projects, and charge license fees for commercial
projects. This is not Open Source at all. I am so disappointed if this
is Nitobi's intention. Just imagine if mobile menufactures agree to
implement PhoneGaps APIs directly on their devices, I see Nitobi will
be very very rich. Read this for more info. Nitobi copy-cats Sun
approach. http://www.sun.com/software/opensource/contributor_agreement.jsp#ca_1
On Jan 30, 4:53 pm, Jesse MacFadyen <jesse.macfad...@nitobi.com>
wrote:
> Great news, we are getting some great code contributions from the community,
> and growing by the day.
>
> In order for us to make sure that all code contributed is in the clear, and
> free for the PhoneGap community to use, we now require contributors to sign
> the attached contributor agreement.
> This will also help us to convince device manufacturers to implement the
> PhoneGap APIs directly on their devices.
>
> Before submitting code, please read, review and sign the attached agreement.
>
> You may submit a signed scanned copy via email to a...@nitobi.com, to get
> started immediately.
> You will also need to follow-up with physical copy mailed to :
>
> *Nitobi Software*
> 300-247 Abbott Street,
> Vancouver BC, Canada
> V6B-2K7
>
> We will be putting a FAQ on the wiki pages sometime in the next week or so.
> In the meantime if you have any questions feel free to email me directly.
>
> *A reminder about the preferred way of contributing.*
>
> 1. Fork the repo at github.com/phonegap/phonegap ( or a specific device
> sub-module )
> 2. Make, test, review, commit your changes.
> 3. Send a pull request ( via github )
>
> *Some things to keep in mind when contributing:*
> *
> *
> - Do not create dependencies on other libraries ( ex. jQuery )
> - Framework discussions are best held in the Dev group :http://groups.google.com/group/phonegap-dev
> - Follow the established coding standards, and if you have questions about
> how best to implement an API, address the Dev group.
> - Remain device agnostic wherever possible, remember that the world is
> bigger than iPhone.
> ( plug-ins will be managed separately and will most likely reside in their
> own repository. )
>
> Regards,
> Jesse
>
> --
> Jesse MacFadyen
>
> blogs.nitobi.com/jesse
>
> Nitobi Creative Commons Contributor Agreement.pdf
> 88KViewDownload
nicolas.m...@gmail.com
1/ what exactly is the relationship between phonegap, main contributors (Shazron, etc.), and nitobi ?
2/ why and in what ways do we/you need nitobi ?
3/ what are the risks at stake here ? I mean what could possibly refrain us to duplicate 0.82 and edge and follow this elsewhere ?
D. Rimron
"On 31/01/2010 21:58, nicolas.m...@gmail.com wrote:
> 1/ what exactly is the relationship between phonegap, main contributors (Shazron, etc.), and nitobi ?
>
Nitobi claims that phonegap is theirs:
from http://nitobi.com/products/phonegap/
" Nitobi's PhoneGap is an open source solution designed to give web
developers JavaScript access to popular mobile device features" (I shall
bite my tongue on how much this annoys me, the taking of credit of other
(non Nitobi) developers and making it sound like they are the sole
developers of the platform)
Shazron works for Nitobi (one presumes in a paid capacity):
from http://nitobi.com/about/team/
Shazron Abdullah, Software Developer
Shazron has spent the last four years developing Mac desktop apps for
pretty well-known companies and is now venturing into the mobile space,
focusing on the iPhone. He has extensive experience with web
technologies especially with the Microsoft ASP.NET platform. He believes
that Mac and PC should and can co-exist in peace
> 2/ why and in what ways do we/you need nitobi ?
>
Other than the fact they are (or, at least, appear to be) employing
developers to work on the project, and thus are the main source of
driving the framework forward at this time the company itself isn't
needed, but the developers are.
> 3/ what are the risks at stake here ? I mean what could possibly refrain us to duplicate 0.82 and edge and follow this elsewhere ?
>
We could fork 0.9EDGE right now, under the MIT, and start "FreeGap" with
no actual worries or fears in that respect - other than project
fracture, "two distinctly different frameworks" and causing a different
set of incompatibilities across handset runtimes. The biggest thing
that's "lost" is the fact that PhoneGap is becoming a recognised name in
Mobile App development, and a fork of the project, under a different
name would be seen as, in effect, a competing product and mindshare is
as important as developers when trying to create a cross platform API.
-Dx
Andrew Lunny
Sorry if you feel slighted - I saw the link from Fil's tweet, rather
than from the message on the list. I've updated the blog post now to
credit you.
Andrew
On Sun, Jan 31, 2010 at 6:47 AM, John Britton <jab...@gmail.com> wrote:
--
Andrew Lunny
Software Developer, Nitobi
604 685 9287
andrew...@nitobi.com
Brian.LeRoux
RIDICULOUS, SPECULATIVE and IMMATURE behavior. We're going to schedule
a phone call with myself and the Nitobi PhoneGap team Monday where
anyone can participate to clear this up like adults having a real
discussion. We want this to be as painless as possible. Unfortunately,
it would appear a vocal minority here want to turn this into a
negative trauma exercise. Fucking trolls.
1.) WE ARE NOT RE-LICENSING PHONEGAP FOR COMMERCIAL PURPOSES. PHONEGAP
WILL REMAIN MIT LICENSED.
2.) We are working with more than one major handset operating system
vendor to make PhoneGap a first class citizen of their respective
platforms. These big companies require us to sign contributer
agreements therefore we need to get our contributers to sign one for
PhoneGap.
3.) PhoneGap's continued success depends on openness.
That is the project motivation: to make the web a first class
development environment. Open, transparent and always 100% free. This
is our first stab at a contributer agreement: we will address problems
such as "forcing" you to mail us a copy. Contributer agreements are
common throughout the open source world especially when dealing with
traditional enterprisy sectors like mobile. We can make this work.
Cut Nitobi some fucking slack: PhoneGap simply would not exist without
our efforts. Hell, maybe even give us the benefit of the doubt and
assume we are trying to do the right thing. AND MAYBE, consider trying
to showing us a little respect? We're not in this to fuck you (and
thus this whole fucking project) over.
Brian
On Jan 31, 2:15 pm, "D. Rimron" <dar...@xalior.com> wrote:
> This is how I see it:
>
> "On 31/01/2010 21:58, nicolas.m.hernan...@gmail.com wrote:> 1/ what exactly is the relationship between phonegap, main contributors (Shazron, etc.), and nitobi ?
>
> Nitobi claims that phonegap is theirs:
> fromhttp://nitobi.com/products/phonegap/
> " Nitobi's PhoneGap is an open source solution designed to give web
> developers JavaScript access to popular mobile device features" (I shall
> bite my tongue on how much this annoys me, the taking of credit of other
> (non Nitobi) developers and making it sound like they are the sole
> developers of the platform)
>
> Shazron works for Nitobi (one presumes in a paid capacity):
> fromhttp://nitobi.com/about/team/
John Britton
I don't want the personal credit. We are all working together and the
community actually inspired me to look.
Once I validated it worked I shared with everyone.
Now with the apparent new Notobi position I feel less inclined to
research validate and share.
The timing of the latest announcment and the blog message, at least to
me, show a concerted effort to distance the community from the product.
The community is looking for a project like this. I am not sure the
project deserves this community.
John
Sent from my iPhone
On Jan 31, 2010, at 4:37 PM, Andrew Lunny <andrew...@nitobi.com>
wrote:
Bru
day. People consider the community as well as the technology. It seems
this topic should bot have been one until the direction and message
was clear. No fault to anyone, but let's keep the tone civil until the
story is straight. Ages groups of all kinds are reading this.
Thanks,
On Jan 31, 6:14 pm, John Britton <jab...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Andrew,
> I don't want the personal credit. We are all working together and the
> community actually inspired me to look.
>
> Once I validated it worked I shared with everyone.
>
> Now with the apparent new Notobi position I feel less inclined to
> research validate and share.
>
> The timing of the latest announcment and the blog message, at least to
> me, show a concerted effort to distance the community from the product.
>
> The community is looking for a project like this. I am not sure the
> project deserves this community.
>
> John
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Jan 31, 2010, at 4:37 PM, Andrew Lunny <andrew.lu...@nitobi.com>
> > --
> > Andrew Lunny
> > Software Developer, Nitobi
> >604 685 9287
Jann Gobble
We are not trolls. We are concerned...and several things bother me (from what I am understanding so far). One of which is that it would've been the EASIEST thing in the world for you to tell us *in the original email* that "PhoneGap is now and will remain both MIT Licensed and Free." and "Nitobi remains committed to seeing this MIT licensed version of PhoneGap is supported in the future -- with the changes you all submit to us incorporated into PhoneGap", etc.
I do not see why the companies would/could require our copyrights be handed over to *you* when, for instance, Apple does not make me sign ANYTHING if i contribute to the FreeBSD project. They just take whatever code from the FreeBSD project they wish and put it into OS X -- keeping the copyrights intact. The FreeBSD license protects me (an even more permissive license in my opinion than the MIT license).
Why can't Nitobi? Why make us assign our rights to you when they can be (and are) put out there using the MIT license. You have every right under the MIT license to use that code to make your own project and do with it what you will, but there never has and never will be a reason for us to release our rights to the code we contribute.
I do not see why you just do not include:
<snip>
Copyright (c) <year> <copyright holders>
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person
obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation
files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without
restriction, including without limitation the rights to use,
copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the
Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following
conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,... etc
</snip>
in the source code and be done with it.
Or is it that you just do not want to have to put a copyright in for each submission? That is the *only* thing I can think of, outside of "nefarious" purposes... (ie: going after people that use that method or code in their own software -- for monetary gain)
One other thing: This document was put out with absolutely no input from the developers you are trying to get to sign it. In the spirit of PhoneGap you could've sent out feelers, letting us know what you were doing, and asking for input. As it is, we got an ultimatum.
The major player in this market, and the major target to date of PhoneGap, is Apple. Are you really telling us that Apple is ready to accept PhoneGap as an alternative to the iPhone SDK and XCode compiled into a true Native App? They are willing at this point to accept PhoneGap apps into the app store, but they have traditionally been against any other development environment...and are certainly not (in my opinion) going to allow a PhoneGap runtime to ship on the iPhone -- which is the only thing I can think of when you say "First Class Citizen on their Platforms".
Please stop the cursing (especially the cursing) and accusations against us when it is *us* who are being asked to do something without full knowledge of why.
Thank you
Jann
Brian LeRoux
> I do not see why you just do not include:
> <snip>
> in the source code and be done with it.
Not our choice.
> Or is it that you just do not want to have to put a copyright in for each submission? That is the *only* thing I can think of, outside of "nefarious" purposes... (ie: going after people that use that method or code in their own software -- for monetary gain)
Listen, Jann, stop putting FUD like '"nefarious" purposes' up here.
Lets stick to the facts. The lawyers are driving this. Not me. Not
Nitobi.
> One other thing: This document was put out with absolutely no input from the developers you are trying to get to sign it. In the spirit of PhoneGap you could've sent out feelers, letting us know what you were doing, and asking for input. As it is, we got an ultimatum.
This is the feeler, and I will be the first to admit a failure of one!
Not an ultimatum: Once again, this is speculation.
> The major player in this market, and the major target to date of PhoneGap, is Apple.
Alright Jann. Stop making stuff up. Your fantasy world does not apply
here. We are not talking to Apple. We are talking to the Symbian
Foundation as one example however.
> Please stop the cursing (especially the cursing) and accusations against us when it is *us* who are being asked to do something without full knowledge of why.
Agreed, the cursing is unprofessional. Tho that said, you are
speculating, making up rumors and overall just acting like a petulant
child. I don't owe you anything more than you me. Treat us with some
respect and you'll see the same from me.
nicolas.m...@gmail.com
Brian LeRoux
you approach this? I remind you: Apache, Mozilla, MySQL and many
others require contributor agreements.
D. Rimron
personal email I've had today from people worried or supporting my
position made me change my mind:
On 31/01/2010 23:10, Brian.LeRoux wrote:
> I am REALLY disappointed by a few of you here with all this
> RIDICULOUS, SPECULATIVE and IMMATURE behavior.
If our behavior is ridiculous because your actions are deserving of
ridicule.
Giving out disjointed facts and contradictions is a surefire way to fuel
speculation.
The only immaturity I can pinpoint is the way some people have chosen to
conduct themselves in the manner of language and lack of respect to
other people's contributions and the law surrounding them.
> We're going to schedule
> a phone call with myself and the Nitobi PhoneGap team Monday where
> anyone can participate to clear this up like adults having a real
> discussion.
I'll ignore this jibe, for the sake of civility.
> We want this to be as painless as possible. Unfortunately,
> it would appear a vocal minority here want to turn this into a
> negative trauma exercise. Fucking trolls.
>
I've not actually noticed any posts that were inflammatory, extraneous,
or off-topic messages - that's the definition of a troll that I'm aware
of, unless you have a different one.
Additionally, personal insults (to your userbase) are not the way to
endear a community that your business is the right one to be
responsible/police for the project.
> 1.) WE ARE NOT RE-LICENSING PHONEGAP FOR COMMERCIAL PURPOSES. PHONEGAP
> WILL REMAIN MIT LICENSED.
>
That's not what the agreement says, you should get your ducks in order
before you go public. :-(
> 2.) We are working with more than one major handset operating system
> vendor to make PhoneGap a first class citizen of their respective
> platforms. These big companies require us to sign contributer
> agreements therefore we need to get our contributers to sign one for
> PhoneGap.
>
Having such code owned by Nitobi is the wrong way to do it, some sort of
open handset api alliance or the FSF or similar is "the right way" if
you honestly mean what you say. If you were to form some sort of
alliance the board of which SHOULD NOT be majority Nitobi
employees/staff. This is the only way to ensure a fair and impartial
"oversight".
> That is the project motivation: to make the web a first class
> development environment. Open, transparent and always 100% free. This
> is our first stab at a contributer agreement: we will address problems
> such as "forcing" you to mail us a copy. Contributer agreements are
> common throughout the open source world especially when dealing with
> traditional enterprisy sectors like mobile. We can make this work.
>
Then perhaps you should take a different approach to getting it adopted.
Having Jesse say that "we now require contributors to sign the attached
contributor agreement." isn't a first stab at an agreement, it's issuing
the document like it's law. It's not "putting out feelers" it's "issuing
a demand". This is what addled most people. The first most of us have
heard of this is you (Nitobi) taking ownership of all the code.
> Cut Nitobi some fucking slack: PhoneGap simply would not exist without
> our efforts.
Possibly true; it'd be called something else, the API wouldn't be quite
the same, but otherwise I'd beg to differ. Other projects to achive this
existed before phonegap and were ether cancelled or left to bitrot based
upon the achievements of PhoneGap -- I know this is true; at a Scottish
Enterprise meeting well over a year ago the exact verdict arrived at
was, "The market will deliver this technology from a number of
sources". Just because you did it first doesn't mean others wouldn't
have, or were not - and if Nitobi was to cease right now, the
independent developers would still work upon the code base, just not as
fast. The concept itself is not rocket science, is not unique, and it's
not like you were the first to come up with the idea of wrapping
JavaScript/ECMAscript in a native wrapper and throwing it on the device.
> Hell, maybe even give us the benefit of the doubt and
> assume we are trying to do the right thing.
Because assumptions like that are what leave people out in the cold, the
right thing should be demonstrated, not presumed, otherwise you only
notice you've been, as you put it, fucked, when it's too late. A
non-commercial entity not trying to "make the code its own" would have
more luck with implied trust.
> AND MAYBE, consider trying
> to showing us a little respect?
First, I have to ask why, when showing real, honest, worthy concerns the
responses from Nitobi vary from "oh, come back tomorrow" to this
diatribe of swearing and implied insults - what has Nitobi done to earn
respect on this particular matter - the owning of everyone elses code?
Second I have to say respect is to be earned, and the way you're treated
the userbase with this agreement, and your language to your community in
this email, really doesn't earn it. In fact, is lessens it.
> We're not in this to fuck you (and
> thus this whole fucking project) over.
>
Statements like "This whole fucking project" really does nothing to
convince people that you are the right people to "police" this.
As for not actually "fucking the project over" - taking all the code for
yourself really doesn't show that.... as others have said, there's
"better" people to own the project than Nitobi. It's made worse by the
fact it wasn't even called a PhoneGap contributors agreement, but a
Nitobi Contributors agreement - most people on this list aren't here to
contribute to your company, but to the project, if they are going to
contribute at all. In short, this wouldn't have gone down in flames if
it was presented right in the first instance.
I would love to see phonegap, as you put it, a first class citizen - but
that shouldn't be handled by a single commercial entity - but by a
non-profit with nothing to gain but adoption. It's pretty evident that
Nitobi makes commerical gains from PhoneGap (via the training, if
nothing else) - they may not be yet breaking even to your investment in
development time, but you _ARE_ taking money via the project - making
you one of the worst entities to be in charge of it.
-Dx
Andrew Lunny
For the record, the timing of the blog post about setting up a
BlackBerry development environment on OS X was in no related to the
posting of a contributor agreement for PhoneGap developers. The blog
post was written solely by me, and I take full responsibility for only
crediting the author of the original tutorial and the tweet where I
saw the link. It was not mandated by any corporate policy to remove
credit from anyone who linked the tutorial on the mailing list.
If the two unrelated events have upset you, that's very unfortunate.
But to suggest a "concerted effort" on Nitobi's part to cheat the
community out of credit is ludicrous and more than a little insulting.
Andrew
D. Rimron
> But to suggest a "concerted effort" on Nitobi's part to cheat the
> community out of credit is ludicrous and more than a little insulting
-Dx
D. Rimron
> Hey Nicolas, what is the standard for open source projects? How would
> you approach this? I remind you: Apache, Mozilla, MySQL and many
> others require contributor agreements.
to a non-profit making foundation with an independent board of
directors. That's the major difference there.
-Dx
D. Rimron
> Apologize for my language. I am angry.
example of why you should not be allowed to police the project. If you
own all the code and someone upsets you again, what's to stop you
suddenly "taking your ball home". Again, I say, if you want the code
owned by a single entity it should be an open, public, non-profit
organisation, not Nitobi.
-Dx
Jikku Jose
Im guessing Nitobi wants phonegap to be free for personal ,non-commercial projects, and charge license fees for commercial projects.
If something close to that happens. I will definitely start development on a new open source framework. In fact I and my company was already prepared for it. But as we came to know about PG. We stopped the plans and were going to develop it further rather than re-inventing the wheel.
John Britton
I originally misread this and understood it to be an open call anyone could attend. But from rereading it appears to be an internal call. Can you clarify that this call will be open for everyone?
If it is, when do you expect to send out a meeting notice?
All,
Lets just relax for the rest of the day. See what Monday brings and then react based on the next piece of information Nitobi presents. I am guessing that they are as surprised about our concerns about the Contributor Agreement as we were about the announcement of the Contributor Agreement.
John
Jan
so basically nothing changes:
Phonegap stays free and open-source. But to make sure it can stay that
way, you have to be sure that alle the contributed code matches these
criteria, too. Right?
The lawyer speak is very "threatening" and is missing a "normal
language translation" right now. Perhaps adding that should be a
priority.
If the posted PDF is just a draft and subject to discussion, adding
this to the mail subject would help to deescalate the situation, too.
- Jan
On 1 Feb., 00:57, Brian LeRoux <brian.ler...@nitobi.com> wrote:
> Hey Nicolas, what is the standard for open source projects? How would
> you approach this? I remind you: Apache, Mozilla, MySQL and many
> others require contributor agreements.
>
stevben
It's 4PM here in Belgium and I'm impatient to read the next
discussions about this topic.
Personally, I'm also a little disappointed about this agreement. But I
have to recognize that I need more informations to make a decision (go/
no go with phonegap).
Can you give us more clarifications and tell us what are the real
plans of Nitobi with the PhoneGap project.
Regards,
ade
Wake up ! ;) It's 4PM here in Belgium and I'm impatient to read the next discussions about this topic.
Jann Gobble
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/city.html?n=256
:) Jann
stevben
Brian LeRoux
one to this effect. Once more: PhoneGap will remain MIT licensed. The
agreement is to guarantee that.
Also the doc has an unfortunate name. The agreement *itself* is
creative commons licensed. We are changing the PhoneGap license.
*sigh*
Jan
I think you wanted to type:
We are _not_ changing the PhoneGap license.
Just clean up the communication of this stuff and everything is fine.
- Jan
On 1 Feb., 17:03, Brian LeRoux <brian.ler...@nitobi.com> wrote:
> you got it --- expect some sort of blog post today or something like
> one to this effect. Once more: PhoneGap will remain MIT licensed. The
> agreement is to guarantee that.
>
> Also the doc has an unfortunate name. The agreement *itself* is
> creative commons licensed. We are changing the PhoneGap license.
>
> *sigh*
>
> ...
>
> Erfahren Sie mehr »
Brian LeRoux
the PhoneGap license.
-brian
Jesse MacFadyen
davidroe
world will create an emotional attachment between someone and their
work. Standing on the sidelines telling someone how it should be done
without ever getting your own hands dirty is not going to get you
anywhere.
Jann Gobble
> Standing on the sidelines telling someone how it should be done
> without ever getting your own hands dirty is not going to get you
> anywhere.
You do not know what Dx has done with/to PhoneGap. As stated in the conference call he wants to contribute...but had issues with the document -- which Nitobi now understand and have offered to deal with.
Let's all calm down. We had the conference call, calm heads are prevailing... let's just see how the Symbian Foundation and Nitobi can come up with an agreement that we can all deal with in the long run. Listen to the conference call (thanks for posting Dx) and we can all figure out the best way of ensuring PhoneGap is a success.
Jann
davidroe
who contributed and committed. besides, dictating policy to someone
using their choice of language as the only leverage is pretty weak.
I only picked up this thread today and must have missed the part about
it all being over.