winding down
Aaron Swartz
Sunlight and I have agreed to wind down the current Watchdog project. We'll be working on a plan for how to transition things moving forward, but in the mean time, please stop working on watchdog and send me an invoice for however much we owe you.
I believe most of you have already made other arrangements, but if you're still looking for work send me a note offlist and we'll try to find you something.
It's been an amazing year and a half. I'll always be proud of what we've accomplished. Obviously, we're all sad that it can't continue further, but the project was always pursued in a spirit of experimentation. Thanks to Sunlight for giving it a try and thanks to all of you for making it happen.
Since some people seem to be curious about me, I should say that I've been resigning all my roles (Open Library, Change Congress, Watchdog.net) and plan to take a year off from the Internet to bury myself in paper. I'm working on a book about politics.
All the best,
- Aaron
Kragen Javier Sitaker
> Sunlight and I have agreed to wind down the current Watchdog
> project. We'll be working on a plan for how to transition things
> moving forward, but in the mean time, please stop working on
> further, ... I've been resigning all my roles (Open Library, Change
> Congress, Watchdog.net) ...
I'm sad to hear that you and Sunlight will no longer be involved in
the project. However, that does not mean that it can't continue
further; although you may not be aware of this, we've been discussing
how to continue without you over the last couple of weeks. I just
hoped we would see it through as a team :)
Here are the things we still need from you:
1. Watchdog.net, LLC, needs to license the code under a free software
license, as you committed to do when we assigned copyright to it.
I think the AGPLv3 would be most appropriate. Are you still
legally empowered to act on behalf of Watchdog.net, LLC? If not,
who are the directors of the corporation? Do you have copyright
assignment agreements for all the contributors on file? Can you
either publish them or make them available privately to one of us,
in order to ensure that the legal status of the code is not in
question?
2. What's the status of the virtual host that's currently running
watchdog.net? What do we need to do to keep it running without a
glitch during the changeover?
3. The watchdog.net domain is currently registered to you through
2012, and the nameservice is running on two of your machines. Are
you willing to continue doing that indefinitely, or should you
transfer the domain to one of us (or to Watchdog.net, LLC, if you
want to continue with that vehicle)?
4. What's the legal status of the crawl data? Is there anything in
there that we should be concerned about revealing to the public?
Your contributions to the project have been enormous, and it's a big
loss that you aren't involved any more, but we have created a strong
base for an independent project.
Kragen
Aaron Swartz
> the project. However, that does not mean that it can't continue
Of course; I'd love to see it continue and do what I can to help.
> 1. Watchdog.net, LLC, needs to license the code under a free software
Oops, I thought we'd done this. I checked in the AGPLv3 as LICENSE.txt.
> 2. What's the status of the virtual host that's currently running
> watchdog.net? What do we need to do to keep it running without a
> glitch during the changeover?
I'm happy to continue keeping it running.
> 3. The watchdog.net domain is currently registered to you through
> 2012, and the nameservice is running on two of your machines. Are
> you willing to continue doing that indefinitely, or should you
> transfer the domain to one of us (or to Watchdog.net, LLC, if you
> want to continue with that vehicle)?
I'm happy to continue this.
> 4. What's the legal status of the crawl data? Is there anything in
> there that we should be concerned about revealing to the public?
Not that I know of, although I've been more careful with the voter
registration databases.
didier deshommes
<kra...@canonical.org> wrote:
> I'm sad to hear that you and Sunlight will no longer be involved in
> the project. However, that does not mean that it can't continue
> further; although you may not be aware of this, we've been discussing
> how to continue without you over the last couple of weeks. I just
> hoped we would see it through as a team :)
Kragen, what have you guys decided with respect to continuing the work
on watchdog.net? Is the project "dead"? The email list has been very
quiet lately.
didier