[Opensim-dev] request change for contributor agreement

[Justin Clark-Casey]

On 01/07/10 07:40, Frisby, Adam wrote:
> 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.

+1.  Hopefully we can get the ball rolling internally on this topic soon.

>
> 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/
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Justin Clark-Casey (justincc)
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