[Opensim-dev] request change for contributor agreement

[Frisby, Adam]

Hi Rob,

I suspect the principles which allow the 6 month rule probably also allow an exemption to that rule (I would be surprised if they didn't.); but I would want to hear from legal advice before we could make any adjustments to the contributor agreement.

Regards,

Adam

> -----Original Message-----
> From: opensim-dev-bounces at lists.berlios.de [mailto:opensim-dev-
> bounces at lists.berlios.de] On Behalf Of Robert A. Knop Jr.
> Sent: Wednesday, 30 June 2010 8:46 PM
> To: opensim-dev at lists.berlios.de
> Subject: [Opensim-dev] request change for contributor agreement
> 
> It is my hope in the next 6-9 months to be in a position where I'll be
> able to start making real contributions to OpenSim.  There are some
> things I have to work out -- I have to make sure that the IP policies
> of the Unviersity where I'm going won't create problems.  However,
> there's another issue:
> 
>   You have not witnessed, seen or been party to the development of the
>   official Linden Lab Server Software. If you have been involved in the
>   official server development your contributions may affect the
>   licensing of the main codebase and we cannot accept the contributions
>   without a waiver from Linden Lab disclaiming any interest in your
>   contributions.
> 
> Of course, I did see a bunch of that, way back when.  The part that I
> actively worked on myself was something that has no analog in OpenSim
> (the "region conductor", which dealt with figuring out which servers
> ran which regions).  And, it's been more than a year -- will likely
> have been more than 18 months by the time I'm in a position where I'll
> be able to start making contributions.
> 
> Six or eight months ago, I made some preliminary investigations into
> getting this sort of waiver, asking somebody who was most likely to be
> sympathetic to the need for it, and indications are that such a waiver
> is probably very difficult to get.  I honestly do not believe that
> Linden would want to sign such a thing.  However, I also don't think
> that they should have to.  It's been long enough since I had access to
> that code that there's no practical way I can steal any of it at this
> point.  Would it be possible to have some sort of timeout (say, 18
> months) added to this clause in the contributor agreement?
> 
> If that can't be done, then if I want to work on OpenSim I'm
> effectively going to have to make my own fork of it.  I know I'll want
> to be working on things related to the Physics engine, and it would be
> sad to me if I were not able to contribute what I did back to core
> OpenSim.  It would greatly undermine the value of what I hope to be
> able to do in the future.
> 
> --
> --Rob Knop
>   E-mail:    rknop at pobox.com
>   Home Page: http://www.pobox.com/~rknop/
>   Blog:      http://www.sonic.net/~rknop/blog/