Legal Team/Minutes/2012-03-21

Attendees

• Jilayne Lovejoy, OpenLogic
• Peter Williams, OpenLogic
• Tom Incorvia, Microfocus
• Adam Cohn, Cisco
• Mark Gisi, Windriver
• David Wheeler, IDA
• Paul Madick, HP

new conference dial-in number

Some people still dialing into the old number.

• Jilayne needs to send new invite → DONE: invite sent to spdx-legal list, but not sure that will work... ??
• NOTE: no meeting April 5 due to Linux Collab Summit going on. Jilayne on holiday on April 18, so someone else will need to lead the call on that date, most likely.

Upcoming events

• Linux Collab Summit, San Fran, April 3-5, Tuesday - Thursday
  • Keynote panel on SPDX on Tuesday afternoon at 2:45
  • Tech team working group on Wednesday afternoon
  • All teams working group on Thursday afternoon (Phil O coordinating that schedule now: items submitted for discussion on that agenda for legal team:
    • license list addition process
    • license matching guidelines - finish
    • different headers for one license issue (MPL 2.0; GPL only v. or later, etc.) which also touches matching guidelines
      • discussion re: prioritizing these; all agreed license list addition process is crucial to get hammered out.
      • point made that we don't need a formal process, but some process that is clearly identified
      • benefit of putting some of the "burden" on person making request in terms of providing necessary information and some kind of rationale for why the license should be on the list
      • some background on how we got here - i.e. "draft" of process that was somewhat forward thinking and describes a more formal process that might include a web form for submittal, etc.; ownership of business team (see: Business_Team/Process_for_Adding_to_License_List_Draft)
      • all agreed that legal team is really where this belongs (at least as first point of contact) and no one seemed to think the business team was going to object to the legal team taking it back.
      • logical starting point is to describe the process as it is now, i.e. email to legal group, discussion, addition (or rejection). we can always modify/update as needed along the way
      • can we simply take care of this via email/list serve? (and then not have to spend tiem on it at the working group on 4/5?)
      • Adam to write up process as it goes currently; will circulate this to Biz and Legal groups and if no objections, post as current process on site, etc.
• SPDX Forum, San Jose, April 6, Friday
  • maek sure to register and invite people!! Kim sent email with info and see Old/SPDX_Forum:_Managing_Open_Source_Software_Licenses_with_Suppliers_and_Customers
• Who will be where?
  • Jilayne Peter, Adam, Mark at both; Paul at Thursday only; David, Tom not able to make either

Website refresh update from Mark

• Mark has completed the task of moving all the old/existing website pages to the corresponding pages on the new site, with the exception of:
  • the License List which is generated separately. Gary is aware of this issue/need to migrate over to new site
  • 3 pages listed on new site that we do not have content for:
    1. list of legal-related conferences/activities
    2. list of roles of people
    3. key activities/issues page
  • not going to worry about 1 and 2 for now, but 3 could be used for listing items to be discussed on thursday, April 5 at the Linux Collab Summit SPDX working session.
    • Jilayne to create this page on old/existing site and let Mark know, so he can map it to new site
    • check with Kim re: timing

License List - various items

• Re-affirmed decision from last week to ADD license: BSD-4-Clause-UC (see Tom's email sent just before meeting for summary)
  • License to be added to list for v1.15
• Discussed Tom's proposal to add two BSD-ish licenses: NetBSD and FreeBSD
  • these (legally speaking) are different licenses due to an extra sentence or clause at the start or end of the license text
  • Decided to add both to list as separate licenses;
  • Tom to circulate naming proposals for full name and short identifier
    • should full name be "NetBSD" becuase that's what it is called "in the wild" or should we follow SPDX naming convention and call it something like, "BSD 3-clause (NetBSD)" which would have the benefit of showing all BSD-like licenses on list near each other for alphabetical purposes?? on the other hand, would someone be more likely to look/expect to find it under NetBSD?? - to be discussed further
• "copyright holder" versus "copyright owner"
  • wanted to get European perspective on whether these two things can be equated
  • Jilayne to email European Legal Network for feedback → email sent
• coordinating and aligning SPDX License List with other lists (Fedora, Debian, OSI, FSF)
  • OSI - already has adopted naming and short identifiers, but some follow-up needs to be done. no word from then on when that will happen, but open-issues notated in spreadsheet version of License List
  • Fedora and Debian - we have talked to, but getting back in touch now would be good
    • Jilayne to reach out to Tom at Fedora and chase down contact from previous email string re: Debian
  • FSF "license list" as per this page: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html
    • Jilayne thought this was considered/checked when License list made, but will check
• License List text review - want to have this DONE by a week from tomorrow (3/29) so all text will have been checked and revisions included in v1.15 upload scheduled for sometime before the Forum on 4/6
  • Jilayne to follow up with people who have not completed their homework...
• AGPL full name has "v3" instead of "v3.0" as all other GPL licenses naming do - fix this
• brought up general issue of the licenst list field protocols which is posted here: Legal_Team/License_List/License_Matching_Guidelines
  • needs to be updated a bit, as a few things are missing