Release of NetBeans JCA

NetBeans Community Members,

I am writing to you on behalf of Evan Adams, who as you know is 
indisposed for the next while.  I know you all send him good wishes in 
his surgery.  We have heard from his wife that all seems to be going well.

On to business:

Over the last many weeks and months there has been much discussion about 
the impending implementation of Joint Copyright Assignment for all 
contributions made to the NetBeans.org community codebase.  We at Sun 
have found copyright assignment to be a best practice in our open source 
communities because it reduces the risk that Sun would not be able to 
effectively support or defend the codebase against interests outside the 
community.  We authored the present Joint Copyright Assignment in 
response to our desire to aggregate the rights associated with codebases 
we consider highly important (such as NetBeans and OpenOffice.org). That 
we base revenue-bearing products on these codebases indicates their 
importance to us, but notice also our onging commitment to developing 
this codebase in concert with a broad community of individuals (not just 
a group of companies).

We heard a clear theme in the NetBeans.org community debate over the 
JCA, that it would be better received if we made it clear (as Ximian 
does) our intention to maintain all accepted contributions in open 
source (eg available to the community under OSI approved licenses).  The 
process of getting approval for this change in language through Sun 
Legal took some time, but our success in obtaining this change is a 
further evidence of the positive intent of the JCA.

So, at this time we are *finally* able to unveil the NetBeans.org JCA 
and to invite all past contributors to complete a JCA covering their 
previous and future contributions.  Links to the form, complete 
instructions for completion and an FAQ can be found at 
http://www.netbeans.org/about/legal/jca.html.  Thanks to Milos Klient, 
who has already signed a JCA.  All JCA signers will be listed as their 
JCAs are received (once we have received a FAX or hard copy) at 
http://www.netbeans.org/about/legal/jca-approved.html.  As of today, 
module owners with commit privileges will only be able to accept future 
contributions from those who have completed JCAs.

If you have a response to this email, please let's have the discussion 
on [email protected] or you can reach me personally at 
[email protected].

Sincerely,

Danese Cooper
Sun Open Source Programs & current Sun Member, NetBeans Board