On Sunday 02 August 2009 15:49:52 Patrick Shirkey wrote:
  
On Sun, Aug 2, 2009 at 8:25 AM, Patrick Shirkey
<pshirkey@boosthardware.com <mailto:pshirkey@boosthardware.com>> wrote:

    This whole problem could have been solved if you had originally
    provided Ray with access to the source when he asked for it, but
    in essence you should be making your code available from the start
    at a public location.

I did make the code available when he asked for it, as I've already
stated. My understanding of the GPL is that it is not essential to
post the code publicly, as long as it is made available on request. I
certainly did that.
      

I have to disagree with that to an extent. The code was not provided
immediately, some element of force had to came into play.

  
Sorry, I missed this previous statement. In this case then I don't see
how you have violated the terms of the GPL. If you provided the code
when requested that should have been enough.
    

Merely providing the source, with or without force needed to obtain it,
did not altogether resolve the GPL violations. Some may still exist given
the number that were uncovered and the vague situation with regard
to the changed copyrights from one version to another. More detailed
clarification is still needed on this front.

I agree. IIUC there are issues with the original copyright being attributed to multiple parties instead of under the institutes name.

I think Bob has clarified that this was a lapse on the part of the QA process as all contributions were from people under research grant and therefore the property of the institute. I believe that this has now been rectified in the license for the latest release.

I missed any other items that were up for scrutiny.



I read in Ray's earlier posts on the issue that he had not received any
code.

    
As far as I can tell, no parties in this group are damaged as a result
of our efforts to provide the fruits of our labors. If there are
developers who think they were damaged, they should write to me and
state the case, then we can try to resolve it. However, I must
speculate that this is very unlikely; we treat our developers as
colleagues, not as adversaries.
      

Colleagues usually get equal billing in the copyrights. The current code
does not show this equal treatment.


IIUC, the current code defines the licensee as the institute for the reason outlined above.

  
Certainly your own party has been damaged due to the controversy that
has been stirred. However I don't see it as a permanent problem as it
seems that Ray has made his point and you have come to the party
and clarified the issue, even going so far as to publically release your
latest version of the code on Source Forge, IIUC.
    

Any damage that resulted, real or imagined, can be traced back to the
originators release practices in not complying fully with the GPL. If all
things had been done to comply from the start then there would have
been nothing to discuss.


I agree that this could have been averted by a more judicious application of protocol on Bob's part. You have forced the issue and I think both parties have tried to make their case in a professional and non personal manner. Although I haven't read all the posts so I can't really quantify that last statement.

It seems that things are moving forwards though?

I hope that you will continue to be motivated to contribute to the project now that Bob has released it to sf.net as that would appear to be your main reason for forcing the issue.




Raymond




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