[Consortium] Linuxaudio.org Management Board

Hello all, I believe we need to convene a meeting (on-line) of the linuxaudio.org management board. The issue has come up that some companies and organisations seem unable to join the consortium because of clause 6 in the policy document. It reads: "Members of the Linuxaudio.org consortium agree not to sue other members, or otherwise instigate prosecutions of members, following a dispute over reverse engineering." http://linuxaudio.org/en/policy.html I don't think it's that these companies want to sue developers - it's just that they are unable to promise not to sue. I'd like to see the management board address the question of whether this clause is worth keeping, and if so whether it's more important than wider membership. Two companies have explicitly stated that this clause is the reason why they cannot join the consortium. One university department has said that it cannot commit to agreements of this nature on behalf of the entire institution, and therefore cannot join either. It seems likely that other companies and organisations may also be prevented from joining by this clause. The current members of the management board are: Dave Phillips (Chair) Patrick Shirkey (Boost Hardware) Christian Schaller (GStreamer) Jan Depner (JAMin) Ron Parker (Mirror Image) Steve Harris (plugin.org.uk) Linuxaudio.org participants who have not yet nominated a representative: AGNULA ALSA Ardour Audacity Core Sound dyne:bolic Fervent Software 4Front Technologies JACK Linux Audio Systems Lionstracs Mandrakesoft Rosegarden Naturally, we can only have one person representing each project or company, otherwise there could be problems with multiple votes. Management board discussions are intended to take place on a dedicated mailing list: http://lists.linuxaudio.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/management The list has public archives but membership is open only to board members. (As linuxaudio.org director, I am subscribed for information purposes, but of course I have no vote in management decisions). If those projects who have not yet nominated a representative would like to do so, I can add those people to the management board mailing list. They can also subscribe themselves, but the subscription will still have to be approved by the list admins (myself and Andrea Glorioso of the Agnula project). Cheers Daniel James Director http://linuxaudio.org