...making Linux just a little more fun!
Rick Moen [rick at linuxmafia.com]
More to come, I'm sure.
----- Forwarded message from Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com> -----
Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 13:04:03 -0700 To: Ross Mayfield <ross.mayfield@socialtext.com> Cc: license-discuss@opensource.org From: Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com> Subject: When will CPAL actually be _used_?Hello, Ross. I noted with great interest Socialtext's submission of Common Public Attribution License to OSI, at the beginning of July, and in fact posted favourable comments on it to the license-discuss mailing list, at that time. The OSI Board then, of course, approved it on July 25.
Since then, your firm's press releases and numerous bits of news coverage (The Register, CMS Wire, eWeek, and quite a few others) have proclaimed your firm's conversion of Socialtext Open to this new OSI-certified licence.
In addition, your firm's Web pages began prominently featuring OSI's "OSI Certified" regulated certification mark logo, which may be used only for codebases released under OSI certified open source licences.
So, I am obliged to ask: When will your product actually use CPAL? To date, it is not. To wit:
o The SourceForge.net project at http://sourceforge.net/projects/socialtext/ has, as the latest downloadable tarball, Socialtext Open release 2.11.6.1. It's perhaps understandable that that form of access to source code still gets the user only code under the "Socialtext Public Licence 1.0" MPL 1.1 + Exhibit B badgeware licence -- because that tarball, your latest full release, was dated May 22, 2007, prior to your CPAL announcements.
o However, what's a bit more difficult to understand is that following hyperlinks for source code access on your coprorate Web site takes you to http://www.socialtext.net/open/index.cgi?socialtext_open_source_code, which cites a svn command to check the "head" development codebase out of repo.socialtext.net -- and that code, your very latest developer code, is likewise under Socialtext Public Licence 1.0.
So, when is Socialtext going to actually use the OSI-certified licence that it's been claiming in public to be using?
Also, would you mind please removing the "OSI Certified" logo from your pages until such time as you are legally entitled to use it? Thank you.
As a reminder, I called your attention here on December 29, 2006 to your then-advertised wiki page http://www.socialtext.net/stoss/ claiming in error that Socialtext had submitted SPL 1.0 to OSI's certification process, when it had not done so. You acknowledged the critique, but Socialtext did not fix the misstatement of fact until I reminded you of it a second time, here, on January 22, 2007. I hope that your firm's correction of its erroneous public licensing information, this time, will be significantly faster.
Best Regards, Rick Moen rick@linuxmafia.com (speaking only for himself)
----- End forwarded message -----
Rick Moen [rick at linuxmafia.com]
----- Forwarded message from Ross Mayfield <ross.mayfield@socialtext.com> -----
Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 16:18:32 -0700 From: Ross Mayfield <ross.mayfield@socialtext.com> To: Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com> Cc: license-discuss@opensource.org Subject: Re: When will CPAL actually be _used_?Thanks, Rick,
Our next release of Socialtext Open will be under CPAL. We've been swamped setting up a new release management process and hosting BarCamp this weekend. Should be next week.
Ross
On 8/21/07, Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com> wrote:
[snip quoting of my entire post]
-- -- Ross Mayfield CEO & Co-founder Socialtext 1-877-GET-WIKI, ext. 209 655 High St. Palo Alto, CA 94301 ross.mayfield@socialtext.com skype:rossmayfield----- End forwarded message -----
----- Forwarded message from Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com> -----
Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 17:01:33 -0700 From: Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com> To: Ross Mayfield <ross.mayfield@socialtext.com> Cc: license-discuss@opensource.org Subject: Re: When will CPAL actually be _used_?Quoting Ross Mayfield (ross.mayfield@socialtext.com):
> Thanks, Rick, > > Our next release of Socialtext Open will be under CPAL. We've been > swamped setting up a new release management process and hosting > BarCamp this weekend. Should be next week.
Meanwhile, you should un-swamp yourself long enough to immediately remove Open Source Initiative's "OSI Certified" logo from http://www.socialtext.net/open/index.cgi?cpal , which has since July 30 had that logo displayed above the claim "CPAL applied to Socialtext Open" -- which claim is not in fact true.
In addition, http://www.socialtext.net/open/index.cgi claims:
Open Source Licenses Socialtext is Open Source Initative Approved Open Source Software.
That turns out to be untrue, as well.
http://www.socialtext.net/open/index.cgi?licensing repeats that erronous claim, once again directly under OSI's trademarked logo:
Socialtext is Open Source Initative Approved Open Source Software. o CPAL - The Common Public Attribution License is our license for Socialtext Open and SocialCalc.
Your continuing to make those claims, particularly below OSI's trademarked logo, is abuse of OSI's certification-mark trademark and (once again) misrepresents your licensing to the public.
If you're saying that's too time-consuming a change, might I recommend some good wiki software for your site? ;->
Best Regards, Rick Moen rick@linuxmafia.com (speaking only for himself)
----- End forwarded message -----
----- Forwarded message from Liz Henry <liz@bookmaniac.net> -----
Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 16:23:12 -0700 From: Liz Henry <liz@bookmaniac.net> To: Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com> CC: Ross Mayfield <ross.mayfield@socialtext.com>,license-discuss@opensource.org
Subject: Re: When will CPAL actually be _used_?Rick Moen wrote:
>So, I am obliged to ask: When will your product actually use CPAL? >To date, it is not.
Hi Rick,
I am working on getting the CPAL applied to our code and for a new release to be out on our site for download. It was on me to get it done, and I got sidetracked a bit by hosting BarCamp. At this point, I mainly need to run our draft of the license as we are going to apply it by our lawyer and get his feedback.
I agree with you that we should not have that big OSI logo on our web site until we put the license properly on our code and release it. That's a bit embarrassing, and I'm sure was meant in good faith. I removed it for now; thanks for pointing that out, and let's hope I put it back (with justification) by next week.
Our application of the license to our own code will be intended not to be overly annoying or intrusive, in short, fairly flexible with its requirements of attribution on the UI.
Cheers,
Liz
---------------------------------------- Liz Henry Open Source Project Manager liz@socialtext.com
-- Liz Henry liz@bookmaniac.net http://bookmaniac.net http://liz-henry.blogspot.com
Rick Moen [rick at linuxmafia.com]
And so he did.
----- Forwarded message from Ross Mayfield <ross.mayfield@socialtext.com> -----
Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 18:41:28 -0700 From: Ross Mayfield <ross.mayfield@socialtext.com> To: Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com> Cc: license-discuss@opensource.org Subject: Re: When will CPAL actually be _used_?Edited the wiki, wasn't hard.
Ross
On 8/21/07, Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com> wrote:
[snip quotation of my entire post]
-- -- Ross Mayfield CEO & Co-founder Socialtext 1-877-GET-WIKI, ext. 209 655 High St. Palo Alto, CA 94301 ross.mayfield@socialtext.com skype:rossmayfield----- End forwarded message -----