| Newsgroups |
gmane.comp.cms.xaraya.devel |
| Organization |
Xaraya |
| Message-ID |
<[email protected]> |
Marcel van der Boom wrote:
>
> [email protected] wrote:
>> c. my own bugfixes and minor enhancements to the above, which can be
>> followed
>> here:http://mtn.netspan.ch/viewmtn.py/core/branch/changes/ch.netspan.xaraya.core
>>
> A 5 min. review of this shows this revision:
>
> http://mtn.netspan.ch/viewmtn.py/core/revision/info/cd9ce4ea9e623d5a97bfee2feebf59bbe53b2c6d
>
>
> and their predecessors. Not only is it a very questionable action to
> remove all copyright lines in the code which are not yours to remove,
> but this makes merging in your changes at least debateable. What is or
> was your intent there?
>
> I'm a bit worried now, to say the least and I urge people to review this
> codebase thoroughly.
No problem with that. As I mentioned the new repository should and will
will be reviewed.
Those revisions were made a few months ago when the subject of copyright
came up during a review of the code. The line you are referring to
reflected the copyright of the DDF, as you well know.
The status of the DDF is highly questionable. I have tried various times
to ascertain what happened to it without success. My understanding,
which may be imperfect, is that no dues for upkeep have been paid and
that you are the only remaining Board Member. Is a Board of Directors
with one person even legal?
I won't go into the details of the absurdity of the DDF situation at
this point, as you know them better than I. The DDF has been the subject
of countless discussions in the Xaraya group, up to the posts a few
weeks ago on the ML, unless I'm mistaken. What people need to know is
that the DDF is incapable of any action and has been for years.
The removal of the copyright line (which btw was replaced by a
placeholder, in case - against all odds - there should actually be a
case to put it back in the future), was done prior to the current
project revival with no particular reference to Xaraya. However, I
believe it is the right decision. It is quite pointless, and even a bit
misleading to have a copyright reference to a defunct organization in
the codebase, especially when we are trying to attract new developers.
You will recall that prior to the copyright message in question there
was a line attributing copyright to the "Xaraya Development Group" for
several years until it was realized the copyright was invalid as such a
legal entity did not exist. There was no problem with removing that. I
argue that the case of the DDF is essentially the same.
I would like to put the burden of proof on the DDF. If someone can show
that the organization is a legally existing entity in good standing then
we can discuss putting the copyright line back in. It certainly doesn't
appear to meet any reasonable criteria as a going concern as far as I
can see. As the single remaining representative of the DDF, I believe
that would fall to you.
Lastly, the PMC was informed of this situation specifically by myself,
and it was decided to have it reviewed before any official release. Your
pointing it out has simply come a bit earlier than anticipated.
So please don't read any nefarious intent into this. There isn't. Quite
the contrary: if the project wants to move forward it needs to free
itself from some of the useless baggage from the past. Nothing has been
done about the DDF situation for years. This is something. If you
disagree please make a case for why that line should remain.
Marc