Hi Bjorn & Janet,
I’m going to play the “I’m just an incubating
project” card as a cover up for my confusion and ignorance.
IMO, the guide to legal documentation is hard to follow because
it’s written from the wrong perspective. We’re engineers, not
lawyers. Give us a formula and we’ll follow it. The guide should
be written like this: “here’s what your project directory structure
should look like” followed by “here’s what each of those
files is for”. At best, it’s currently backwards. There
are even two directory structure examples that are incomplete in their overall
content.
I’m merged the two directory structure examples from 4.2
(Abouts) and 4.3 (Features). Here’s what I got. I’ve
inserted what I think it missing in Red.
eclipse (installation
root directory)
notice.html Software
User Agreement
epl-v10.html EPL
(referenced by SUA)
plugins (plug-ins
and fragments directory)
org.apache.ant_1.6.2 (plug-in
packaged as a directory)
about.html About
asl-v20.txt Apache
Software License referenced by About
LICENSE.dom.html W3C
License referenced by About
about.properties (Feature
Blurb in "blurb" property)
org.eclipse.core.runtime_3.1.0.jar (plug-in packaged as a JAR)
about.html About
about_files (directory
for any local files linked from About)
asl-v20.txt Apache
Software License referenced by About
about.properties (Feature
Blurb in "blurb" property)
org.eclipse.sdk_3.0.1
(plug-in
packaged as a directory)
about.html About
about.properties (Feature
Blurb in "blurb" property)
features (features
directory)
org.eclipse.platform_3.2.0
(the feature for org.apache.ant and org.eclipse.core.runtime?)
license.html (Feature
License)
epl-v10.html (EPL
referenced by SUA/Feature License)
feature.properties (Feature
Update License in "license" property)
org.eclipse.sdk_3.0.1
(feature
directory)
license.html (Feature
License)
epl-v10.html (EPL
referenced by SUA/Feature License)
feature.properties (Feature
Update License in "license" property)
Does this look right? Then, Bjorn’s checker is
looking for the following minimum:
eclipse
plugins
org.eclipse.myplugin_x.y.z
about.html
about.properties (Not
in your list below, but shouldn’t this be included?)
features
org.eclipse.myplugin_x.y.z
license.html
epl-v10.html
feature.properties
Is this correct?
Doug G
From:
eclipse.org-planning-council-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:eclipse.org-planning-council-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bjorn
Freeman-Benson
Sent: Tuesday, June 05, 2007 5:14 PM
To: eclipse.org-planning-council
Cc: Cross project issues
Subject: [eclipse.org-planning-council] One More Final Word on Legal
Stuff
Europa Project Leads,
Like the fifth book in the increasingly
misnamed Hitchhikers Guide Trilogy, here is one more "final" word
on the legal stuff.
I've Made A Mess. This whole legal and license file thing has become a
bit of a mess and it's probably mostly my fault. In an attempt to straighten it
out, I write this email. I have vetted this email with Janet (our Legal ace)
and Mike (the final authority). You may safely ignore my previous email on the
topic and read just this one.
Not Evil. First, let me start by saying that we (the EMO) are not trying
to annoy you (the committers who make Eclipse useful and great). Nor are we
instituting anything new - we're just following the existing Guide to Legal
Documents. The only thing that you might consider new is that we're
actually putting more effort into checking the validity of the legal documents
than we have in the past but, as the policeman said, "just because you've
been speeding here for years doesn't make it legal to speed here"...
Unfortunate Incorrectness. Second, I have not been entirely correct
about all the legal files in some of my earlier emails. That is entirely my
fault. And it should lead you to wonder why you should believe anything I say
on the topic from here on. An excellent question, one best answered by the fact
that I've had Janet and Mike review this email for accuracy.
Clear Rules. The Guide to Legal
Documents is the defining document about the various legal files required
in your features and plug-ins. If you find a section of the Guide to be unclear
or confusing, please ask us (Janet and I) to clarify for you. For example, "I
don't understand section 4.2 where it says 'should' and yet later says 'must' -
which is correct?" or "Section 4.3 doesn't say anything about whether
the html files should have html special characters or just pure-ASCII?".
We will answer your specific question and we will update the Guide to Legal
Documents so that everyone else will also benefit from the answer.
About Files. Section 4.2 of the Guide to Legal
Documents describes about.html files. You'll see from the text there that
about.html files are required for all plug-ins.
Correct Before = Correct Now (I). If your about.html files were correct
in a previous release AND no new third-party code was added to the plug-ins,
then the about.html files are still correct. No date changes are required.
Feature Files. Section 4.3 of the Guide to Legal
Documents describes the license.html and feature.properties files. You will
see in reading that section and section 4.1 (see below for more about section
4.1) that at least four, perhaps five, files are required in each feature:
- Feature License (license.html)
- Feature Update License (feature.properties file,
license property)
- Feature Blurb (about.properties)
- epl-v10.html - a verbatim copy of the Eclipse Public License
v1.0
- notice.html - if license.html is NOT the Eclipse
Foundation Software User Agreement (because you used the clause "One
thing that is important to note is that with the distributed licensing
model used by plug-ins, unless a Feature Update License contains an
aggregation of all the notices from the plug-ins for a feature, a user
will not be able to see these notices before installing the feature. It is
for this reason that the maintainer of a feature may choose to have
different text for the Feature License and Feature Update License."
to have different text in the Feature License), then the notice.html must
contain a verbatim copy of the Eclipse Foundation
Software User Agreement
Correct Before = Correct Now (II). If your
license.html, feature.properties, about.properties, epl-v10.html, and
notice.html files were correct in a previous release AND no new third-party
code was added to the features, then the files are still correct. No date
changes or additional bulleted lists are required.
Section 4.1 and the Software User Agreement. Section 4.1 of the Guide
describes the requirement to have a copy of the SUA: "The appropriate SUA
and a copy of any referenced license must be located in the root directory of
any Eclipse.org distributed build". And because each update manager
installable feature is, effectively, "an Eclipse.org distributed
build", that means that each update manager feature needs to have a copy
of the SUA and any referenced licenses.
Europa Build RC3+ Checker Tool. The automated checker tool that I had
installed without warning before (that was a mistake) has been revised and will
be turned on starting with the Europa RC3+0 build. The automated checker checks
that:
- every plug-in has an about.html
- every feature has a license.html
- every feature has a feature.properties, license
property
- every feature has an epl-v10.html
- every plug-in and feature has been certified by
the project lead as having correct legal files. The list of these
plug-ins, features, and versions are taken from the certification emails
that you all have been sending to the eclipse.org-planning-council@
mailing list.
For Europa, the automated
checker will not check the contents of the files, only their existence. Thus
the tool is a helper for all of us (it finds blatant problems), but cannot be
used as a definition of legal conformance.
Don't "Work Around It." Please, don't just "work
around" the whole legal thing. Each time we see an email on a public list
or blog that says "I'm just working around the legal issues and not really
paying any attention to them", we are forced to institute some new policy
or checker tool to fix that hole. The legal world being what it is, we cannot
just ignore those statements. So each time someone "works around" the
rules, and says so in public, they are just creating more work for everyone
involved - for us and for you.
If you are not happy with the required legal documentation, please use the
constructive techniques of the Eclipse governance model to effect change: talk
to your company's Board member and/or your Committer Board representatives. The
legal issues are complex, but if we cooperate, I'm sure we can work out better
implementations of them for Ganymede and beyond.
Ed,
In a specific response to you: the legal documents require that you include a
license.html in each of your features even though it duplicates the text over
and over again. I agree with you that, as a developer, "It would seem
to make more sense to refer to a single copy of the license maintained by the
foundation and for there to be translations of the license also maintained by
the foundation." but that is not the way the legal documents are
currently written. As a Committer Board member, I would hope that you can take
your experience to the Board and help them revise the legal documents to avoid
the wasted bits and bandwidth in the future.
Martin,
In a specific response to you: "So, they do have internet access at
this time, and the chance that they are able to go to the links for reading the
lienses is big. For cases where it doesn't work, they can download and inspect
the license after downloding". Again, as a developer, I understand the
logic of that position, but it is not what the legal documents currently say.
Signed,
Bjorn (& Janet & Mike)