Hi everyone,

You probably think "Hey I have seen a similar vote started by Henri on 27-3-2006" and the outcome
was 3 -1 from POI so their SVN is still closed for Jakarta committers.

The reasoning behind this is that POI is still trying to stick to what it Jakarta once was and it is
time they join the club completely.

[+1] Open up POI svn commit access.
[-1] Don't open POI svn commit access, because...

The vote will be open for a week.

Mvgr,
Martin

On Fri, 15 Dec 2006, Martin van den Bemt wrote:
> The reasoning behind this is that POI is still trying to stick to what
> it Jakarta once was and it is time they join the club completely.

I think it was actually a reccomendation from the legal team. We have
always asked that anyone contributing code to POI make a statement that
they haven't ever seen any Microsoft file format docs under an NDA or
similar.

So, I'm voing (non binding) [-1], unless legal say it's now OK to let
people commit without having made such a public statement.

Nick

Which legal team ?
Apache legal doesn't know anything about this..

Mvgr,
Martin

Nick Burch wrote:
> On Fri, 15 Dec 2006, Martin van den Bemt wrote:
>> The reasoning behind this is that POI is still trying to stick to what
>> it Jakarta once was and it is time they join the club completely.
>
> I think it was actually a reccomendation from the legal team. We have
> always asked that anyone contributing code to POI make a statement that
> they haven't ever seen any Microsoft file format docs under an NDA or
> similar.
>
> So, I'm voing (non binding) [-1], unless legal say it's now OK to let
> people commit without having made such a public statement.
>
> Nick
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------ ---------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe [at] jakarta.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: general-help [at] jakarta.apache.org
>
>
>

On Fri, 15 Dec 2006, Martin van den Bemt wrote:
> Apache legal doesn't know anything about this..

Back when I joined POI, I was told the apache legal team had suggested the
requirement.

Perhaps one of the older POI committers can supply the original details?

Nick

ehh +1 :)

Mvgr,
Martin

Martin van den Bemt wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> You probably think "Hey I have seen a similar vote started by Henri on 27-3-2006" and the outcome
> was 3 -1 from POI so their SVN is still closed for Jakarta committers.
>
> The reasoning behind this is that POI is still trying to stick to what it Jakarta once was and it is
> time they join the club completely.
>
> [+1] Open up POI svn commit access.
> [-1] Don't open POI svn commit access, because...
>
> The vote will be open for a week.
>
> Mvgr,
> Martin
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------ ---------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe [at] jakarta.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: general-help [at] jakarta.apache.org
>
>
>

On 12/15/06, Nick Burch <nick [at] torchbox.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 15 Dec 2006, Martin van den Bemt wrote:
> > Apache legal doesn't know anything about this..
>
> Back when I joined POI, I was told the apache legal team had suggested the
> requirement.
>
> Perhaps one of the older POI committers can supply the original details?

My understanding is that the advice is from Andy's personal lawyer
many moons ago, maybe before POI joined the ASF.

From an ASF point of view if someone breaks an NDA on our list or in a
commit, then it's their head and not ours. We would respond as quickly
as possible once we're aware of the issue by removing reference to
that issue (and unless we think it was an honest mistake also yanking
the commit rights of the person who broke it). I'm not sure if we'd
legally have to do that or not - I don't know how NDAs fit into IP
(copyright/trademarks), or if its just a personal agreement between
two parties and the NDA breaker is just breaking that contract. I am
not a lawyer etc etc, but the above is my understanding and would hold
for any of our mailing lists.

Public statements seem like an odd thing. There's no official archive
of them at the ASF (and they're not made to the ASF), so I doubt they
hold any weight or value to the ASF.

Hen

Hm,

does it pose a real legal threat or is it just a "felt threat" from
Andy?

I'm +0 for opening. I'm enthusiastic on pushing POI out of Jakarta to
remove this restriction. While I agree that POI fits Jakarta theme-wise,
this "access restriction" thing feels too much like a wart.

Push it to TLP, make Andy chief, wish them farewell. Problem solved. :-)

Best regards
Henning


On Fri, 2006-12-15 at 18:07 +0100, Martin van den Bemt wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> You probably think "Hey I have seen a similar vote started by Henri on 27-3-2006" and the outcome
> was 3 -1 from POI so their SVN is still closed for Jakarta committers.
>
> The reasoning behind this is that POI is still trying to stick to what it Jakarta once was and it is
> time they join the club completely.
>
> [+1] Open up POI svn commit access.
> [-1] Don't open POI svn commit access, because...
>
> The vote will be open for a week.
>
> Mvgr,
> Martin
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------ ---------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe [at] jakarta.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: general-help [at] jakarta.apache.org
>
--
Henning P. Schmiedehausen -- hps [at] intermeta.de | J2EE, Linux,
91054 Buckenhof, Germany -- +49 9131 506540 | Apache person
Open Source Consulting, Development, Design | Velocity - Turbine guy

"Save the cheerleader. Save the world."

If anyone comments or votes who is from the POI community, could you
please identify yourself?

We need to be sure there is representation in this vote.

I'm abstaining till I see more debate. I see the implication of
Martin's point -- POI is pretty insular in Jakarta. But where would
POI go if not for Jakarta?

WILL

On 12/15/06, Henri Yandell <flamefew [at] gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/15/06, Nick Burch <nick [at] torchbox.com> wrote:
> > On Fri, 15 Dec 2006, Martin van den Bemt wrote:
> > > Apache legal doesn't know anything about this..
> >
> > Back when I joined POI, I was told the apache legal team had suggested the
> > requirement.
> >
> > Perhaps one of the older POI committers can supply the original details?
>
> My understanding is that the advice is from Andy's personal lawyer
> many moons ago, maybe before POI joined the ASF.
>
> From an ASF point of view if someone breaks an NDA on our list or in a
> commit, then it's their head and not ours. We would respond as quickly
> as possible once we're aware of the issue by removing reference to
> that issue (and unless we think it was an honest mistake also yanking
> the commit rights of the person who broke it). I'm not sure if we'd
> legally have to do that or not - I don't know how NDAs fit into IP
> (copyright/trademarks), or if its just a personal agreement between
> two parties and the NDA breaker is just breaking that contract. I am
> not a lawyer etc etc, but the above is my understanding and would hold
> for any of our mailing lists.
>
> Public statements seem like an odd thing. There's no official archive
> of them at the ASF (and they're not made to the ASF), so I doubt they
> hold any weight or value to the ASF.
>
> Hen
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------ ---------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe [at] jakarta.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: general-help [at] jakarta.apache.org
>
>


--
Forio Business Simulations

Will Glass-Husain
wglass [at] forio.com
www.forio.com

On Fri, 15 Dec 2006, Henri Yandell wrote:
>> Back when I joined POI, I was told the apache legal team had suggested the
>> requirement.
>>
>> Perhaps one of the older POI committers can supply the original details?
>
> My understanding is that the advice is from Andy's personal lawyer many
> moons ago, maybe before POI joined the ASF.

OK, I'm happy to be corrected :)


Assuming the Apache legal team are happy with us dropping the requirement
(which I take from Martin's email that they are?), then I don't see why we
couldn't drop the restriction.

I'm all for getting more Jakarta participation in POI, and more POI
participation in the rest of Jakarta. That said, I think I'll wait for
Andy's response before I formally switch to a +1

Nick
(I am from POI)

On 12/15/06, Henning Schmiedehausen <hps [at] intermeta.de> wrote:
> Hm,
>
> does it pose a real legal threat or is it just a "felt threat" from
> Andy?

As long as we're not soliciting trade secrets - tis good. I suspect
this is a case of Andy's lawyer back in the day either having a
different opinion or it being a different scenario/context.

> I'm +0 for opening. I'm enthusiastic on pushing POI out of Jakarta to
> remove this restriction. While I agree that POI fits Jakarta theme-wise,
> this "access restriction" thing feels too much like a wart.
>
> Push it to TLP, make Andy chief, wish them farewell. Problem solved. :-)

Nick's been doing lots of work over there :)

I'm +1 for opening, unless it's decided that POI does need to add
extra process to protect from trade secrets. Currently the view is
that it doesn't - however chatting with Harmony to find out how things
worked for them would be of value.

On TLP - the main worry is that POI lacks overlap with the rest of the
ASF - more like an Incubator project than a normal TLP [maybe that's
too harsh]. My thinking is that we (Jakarta PMC) need to bring them up
to speed and then decide whether things are fitting or not.

Apart from the legal issue and the insularity - I'm +1 for POI
becoming a healthy happy part of Jakarta.

Hen

On 12/15/06, Henri Yandell <flamefew [at] gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/15/06, Nick Burch <nick [at] torchbox.com> wrote:
> > On Fri, 15 Dec 2006, Martin van den Bemt wrote:
> > > Apache legal doesn't know anything about this..
> >
> > Back when I joined POI, I was told the apache legal team had suggested the
> > requirement.
> >
> > Perhaps one of the older POI committers can supply the original details?
>
> My understanding is that the advice is from Andy's personal lawyer
> many moons ago, maybe before POI joined the ASF.
>
> From an ASF point of view if someone breaks an NDA on our list or in a
> commit, then it's their head and not ours. We would respond as quickly
> as possible once we're aware of the issue by removing reference to
> that issue (and unless we think it was an honest mistake also yanking
> the commit rights of the person who broke it). I'm not sure if we'd
> legally have to do that or not - I don't know how NDAs fit into IP
> (copyright/trademarks), or if its just a personal agreement between
> two parties and the NDA breaker is just breaking that contract. I am
> not a lawyer etc etc, but the above is my understanding and would hold
> for any of our mailing lists.
>
> Public statements seem like an odd thing. There's no official archive
> of them at the ASF (and they're not made to the ASF), so I doubt they
> hold any weight or value to the ASF.

Additionally - Harmony setup some extra process to help with making
sure everyone involved knew that the ASF didn't want any trade secrets
to be exposed - so there may be something that POI can learn from them
[Geir?].

Hen

-1.

You are of course misrepresenting the issue but okay. It is also
because of the legal issues. Go read the archive and provide a good
faith assertion rather than making an assumption. If YOU want to work
on POI please submit some patches and following that should you wish to
be a committer then respond that you are not now and have never been
bound by a microsoft NDA regarding the file formats.

what is your interest here? Do you have nothing better to do?

-Andy

Martin van den Bemt wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> You probably think "Hey I have seen a similar vote started by Henri on 27-3-2006" and the outcome
> was 3 -1 from POI so their SVN is still closed for Jakarta committers.
>
> The reasoning behind this is that POI is still trying to stick to what it Jakarta once was and it is
> time they join the club completely.
>
> [+1] Open up POI svn commit access.
> [-1] Don't open POI svn commit access, because...
>
> The vote will be open for a week.
>
> Mvgr,
> Martin
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------ ---------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe [at] jakarta.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: general-help [at] jakarta.apache.org
>
>

On 12/15/06, Andrew C. Oliver <acoliver [at] apache.org> wrote:
> -1.
>
> You are of course misrepresenting the issue but okay. It is also
> because of the legal issues. Go read the archive and provide a good
> faith assertion rather than making an assumption. If YOU want to work
> on POI please submit some patches and following that should you wish to
> be a committer then respond that you are not now and have never been
> bound by a microsoft NDA regarding the file formats.
>
> what is your interest here? Do you have nothing better to do?

It should be pretty obvious what Martin's interest is - making sure
Jakarta is running correctly.

Your request that a committer state that they have/are not bound by a
microsoft NDA is ignorable as you're just speaking for yourself
personally and not for the ASF or Jakarta. It's meaningless and a sign
that things are not correct in POI.

Hen

On 12/15/06, Martin van den Bemt <mllist [at] mvdb.net> wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> You probably think "Hey I have seen a similar vote started by Henri on 27-3-2006" and the outcome
> was 3 -1 from POI so their SVN is still closed for Jakarta committers.
>
> The reasoning behind this is that POI is still trying to stick to what it Jakarta once was and it is
> time they join the club completely.

-1 from me.

Harmony doesn't let anyone commit on their project unless they they
sign a statement saying they haven't looked at Sun's source code[1].
AFAIK this is a similar issue and the POI policy [2] is designed to
protect POI, which as a user of POI is a good thing IMO. Even if this
fear is actually unfounded seems like a sensible policy to err on the
side of caution.

Niall

[1] http://harmony.apache.org/auth_cont_quest.html
[2] http://jakarta.apache.org/poi/getinvolved/index.html

> [+1] Open up POI svn commit access.
> [-1] Don't open POI svn commit access, because...
>
> The vote will be open for a week.
>
> Mvgr,
> Martin
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------ ---------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe [at] jakarta.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: general-help [at] jakarta.apache.org
>
>

I feel a bit attacked for no reason really (regarding the barbs thrown
in my direction). It has been some time since I have not been rather
civil on this list and I would expect the return courtesy. I've always
tried to make a good faith effort with regards to POI. I have never
supported (and voted against) the other jakarta flattening thing and at
the time it was disingenuously provided (I never reversed my -1 vote you
just ignored it). Originally if memory serves (like 5 yrs ago) the
legal issue came from our mentor into Jakarta (Stefano Mazzocchi) and
following that based on some early issues with legal stuff that was a
real thread and some real concerns and scenarios (some of which has to
do with an individual that did become a very spirited contributor
elsewhere). That stuff should not be vetted publicly and probably not
on the PMC list.

We very nearly did have a REAL problem in the past that would have put
the project and the ASF in jeopardy and steps were taken to require a
personal assurance.

I still have no personal desire to have the same people who brought me
commons automatically in POI.

I would like to see a formats.apache.org project which was devoted to
Java/Ruby/C# APIs for office software file formats and more. However I
don't wish to be chair. I would support nick as chair though and lend
him what assistance I can.

With the launch of Buni (http://buni.org) my time for repeating votes
every few months because you're a sore looser while throwing barbs at me
is seriously limited. I do however welcome constructive
good-intentioned dialog


-Andy

Nick Burch wrote:
> On Fri, 15 Dec 2006, Henri Yandell wrote:
>>> Back when I joined POI, I was told the apache legal team had
>>> suggested the
>>> requirement.
>>>
>>> Perhaps one of the older POI committers can supply the original
>>> details?
>>
>> My understanding is that the advice is from Andy's personal lawyer
>> many moons ago, maybe before POI joined the ASF.
>
> OK, I'm happy to be corrected :)
>
>
> Assuming the Apache legal team are happy with us dropping the
> requirement (which I take from Martin's email that they are?), then I
> don't see why we couldn't drop the restriction.
>
> I'm all for getting more Jakarta participation in POI, and more POI
> participation in the rest of Jakarta. That said, I think I'll wait for
> Andy's response before I formally switch to a +1
>
> Nick
> (I am from POI)
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------ ---------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe [at] jakarta.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: general-help [at] jakarta.apache.org
>

Hey I have an idea! If it doesn't pass this time we can call another
vote right before the next holiday and hope that none of the POI PMC
members are around... Then 3 months later do it again.

-1 (because my votes don't seem to be counted and Henri will make up
backstory for me)

Henri Yandell wrote:
> On 12/15/06, Henri Yandell <flamefew [at] gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 12/15/06, Nick Burch <nick [at] torchbox.com> wrote:
>> > On Fri, 15 Dec 2006, Martin van den Bemt wrote:
>> > > Apache legal doesn't know anything about this..
>> >
>> > Back when I joined POI, I was told the apache legal team had
>> suggested the
>> > requirement.
>> >
>> > Perhaps one of the older POI committers can supply the original
>> details?
>>
>> My understanding is that the advice is from Andy's personal lawyer
>> many moons ago, maybe before POI joined the ASF.
>>
>> From an ASF point of view if someone breaks an NDA on our list or in a
>> commit, then it's their head and not ours. We would respond as quickly
>> as possible once we're aware of the issue by removing reference to
>> that issue (and unless we think it was an honest mistake also yanking
>> the commit rights of the person who broke it). I'm not sure if we'd
>> legally have to do that or not - I don't know how NDAs fit into IP
>> (copyright/trademarks), or if its just a personal agreement between
>> two parties and the NDA breaker is just breaking that contract. I am
>> not a lawyer etc etc, but the above is my understanding and would hold
>> for any of our mailing lists.
>>
>> Public statements seem like an odd thing. There's no official archive
>> of them at the ASF (and they're not made to the ASF), so I doubt they
>> hold any weight or value to the ASF.
>
> Additionally - Harmony setup some extra process to help with making
> sure everyone involved knew that the ASF didn't want any trade secrets
> to be exposed - so there may be something that POI can learn from them
> [Geir?].
>
> Hen
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------ ---------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe [at] jakarta.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: general-help [at] jakarta.apache.org
>

Andy-- No one was going to railroad this through without input from
POI. See my previous email where I insisted that we have POI
participation. (and I would have -1'd this automatically if it had
been lacking). The discussion was civil up until recently.

I am wondering about this vote though. Why now? and what's the
significance of POI/Jakarta svn access merging? To me it seems the
flattening of svn is of little significance. After a year with the
new structure, I see individual cases where committers have
cross-pollinated (in commons, perhaps) but it hasn't seemed to make a
big impact for many subprojects.

So, then - Martin - why are you calling for a vote? Is there a
pressing need to get access to POI svn? Are there patches being
submitted but not going in? Are you just trying to clean up Jakarta,
make it more definable? Or is there something going on with POI that
we should discuss publically?

There's a reasonable discussion that could be held about the role of
POI and Jakarta. Maybe we should have that discussion instead of
voting on a controversial but practically insignificant issue.

WILL

On 12/15/06, Andrew C. Oliver <acoliver [at] apache.org> wrote:
> Hey I have an idea! If it doesn't pass this time we can call another
> vote right before the next holiday and hope that none of the POI PMC
> members are around... Then 3 months later do it again.
>
> -1 (because my votes don't seem to be counted and Henri will make up
> backstory for me)
>
> Henri Yandell wrote:
> > On 12/15/06, Henri Yandell <flamefew [at] gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On 12/15/06, Nick Burch <nick [at] torchbox.com> wrote:
> >> > On Fri, 15 Dec 2006, Martin van den Bemt wrote:
> >> > > Apache legal doesn't know anything about this..
> >> >
> >> > Back when I joined POI, I was told the apache legal team had
> >> suggested the
> >> > requirement.
> >> >
> >> > Perhaps one of the older POI committers can supply the original
> >> details?
> >>
> >> My understanding is that the advice is from Andy's personal lawyer
> >> many moons ago, maybe before POI joined the ASF.
> >>
> >> From an ASF point of view if someone breaks an NDA on our list or in a
> >> commit, then it's their head and not ours. We would respond as quickly
> >> as possible once we're aware of the issue by removing reference to
> >> that issue (and unless we think it was an honest mistake also yanking
> >> the commit rights of the person who broke it). I'm not sure if we'd
> >> legally have to do that or not - I don't know how NDAs fit into IP
> >> (copyright/trademarks), or if its just a personal agreement between
> >> two parties and the NDA breaker is just breaking that contract. I am
> >> not a lawyer etc etc, but the above is my understanding and would hold
> >> for any of our mailing lists.
> >>
> >> Public statements seem like an odd thing. There's no official archive
> >> of them at the ASF (and they're not made to the ASF), so I doubt they
> >> hold any weight or value to the ASF.
> >
> > Additionally - Harmony setup some extra process to help with making
> > sure everyone involved knew that the ASF didn't want any trade secrets
> > to be exposed - so there may be something that POI can learn from them
> > [Geir?].
> >
> > Hen
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------ ---------
> > To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe [at] jakarta.apache.org
> > For additional commands, e-mail: general-help [at] jakarta.apache.org
> >
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------ ---------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe [at] jakarta.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: general-help [at] jakarta.apache.org
>
>


--
Forio Business Simulations

Will Glass-Husain
wglass [at] forio.com
www.forio.com

Andrew C. Oliver wrote:
> [...]
> I would like to see a formats.apache.org project which was devoted to
> Java/Ruby/C# APIs for office software file formats and more.

That's a very unspecific name. "formats" can mean anything, from
formatting a file system to data formats/representations like BER.
How about "compound documents" -> compdocs or compdogs?
That's probably better than some acronym like jivoff
(Java Implementations of Various Office File Formats :-)

cheers,
Roland

The alias is immaterial to me

-Andy

Roland Weber wrote:
> Andrew C. Oliver wrote:
>
>> [...]
>> I would like to see a formats.apache.org project which was devoted to
>> Java/Ruby/C# APIs for office software file formats and more.
>>
>
> That's a very unspecific name. "formats" can mean anything, from
> formatting a file system to data formats/representations like BER.
> How about "compound documents" -> compdocs or compdogs?
> That's probably better than some acronym like jivoff
> (Java Implementations of Various Office File Formats :-)
>
> cheers,
> Roland
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------ ---------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe [at] jakarta.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: general-help [at] jakarta.apache.org
>
>

Will Glass-Husain wrote:
> Andy-- No one was going to railroad this through without input from
> POI. See my previous email where I insisted that we have POI
> participation. (and I would have -1'd this automatically if it had
> been lacking). The discussion was civil up until recently.
Okay. It just didn't LOOk that way.
>
> I am wondering about this vote though. Why now? and what's the
> significance of POI/Jakarta svn access merging? To me it seems the
> flattening of svn is of little significance. After a year with the
> new structure, I see individual cases where committers have
> cross-pollinated (in commons, perhaps) but it hasn't seemed to make a
> big impact for many subprojects.
+1
> So, then - Martin - why are you calling for a vote? Is there a
> pressing need to get access to POI svn? Are there patches being
> submitted but not going in? Are you just trying to clean up Jakarta,
> make it more definable? Or is there something going on with POI that
> we should discuss publically?
>
+1
> There's a reasonable discussion that could be held about the role of
> POI and Jakarta. Maybe we should have that discussion instead of
> voting on a controversial but practically insignificant issue.
+1

I'd like to see a TLP. Or baring that an exit.
> WILL
>
> On 12/15/06, Andrew C. Oliver <acoliver [at] apache.org> wrote:
>> Hey I have an idea! If it doesn't pass this time we can call another
>> vote right before the next holiday and hope that none of the POI PMC
>> members are around... Then 3 months later do it again.
>>
>> -1 (because my votes don't seem to be counted and Henri will make up
>> backstory for me)
>>
>> Henri Yandell wrote:
>> > On 12/15/06, Henri Yandell <flamefew [at] gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> On 12/15/06, Nick Burch <nick [at] torchbox.com> wrote:
>> >> > On Fri, 15 Dec 2006, Martin van den Bemt wrote:
>> >> > > Apache legal doesn't know anything about this..
>> >> >
>> >> > Back when I joined POI, I was told the apache legal team had
>> >> suggested the
>> >> > requirement.
>> >> >
>> >> > Perhaps one of the older POI committers can supply the original
>> >> details?
>> >>
>> >> My understanding is that the advice is from Andy's personal lawyer
>> >> many moons ago, maybe before POI joined the ASF.
>> >>
>> >> From an ASF point of view if someone breaks an NDA on our list or
>> in a
>> >> commit, then it's their head and not ours. We would respond as
>> quickly
>> >> as possible once we're aware of the issue by removing reference to
>> >> that issue (and unless we think it was an honest mistake also yanking
>> >> the commit rights of the person who broke it). I'm not sure if we'd
>> >> legally have to do that or not - I don't know how NDAs fit into IP
>> >> (copyright/trademarks), or if its just a personal agreement between
>> >> two parties and the NDA breaker is just breaking that contract. I am
>> >> not a lawyer etc etc, but the above is my understanding and would
>> hold
>> >> for any of our mailing lists.
>> >>
>> >> Public statements seem like an odd thing. There's no official archive
>> >> of them at the ASF (and they're not made to the ASF), so I doubt they
>> >> hold any weight or value to the ASF.
>> >
>> > Additionally - Harmony setup some extra process to help with making
>> > sure everyone involved knew that the ASF didn't want any trade secrets
>> > to be exposed - so there may be something that POI can learn from them
>> > [Geir?].
>> >
>> > Hen
>> >
>> > ------------------------------------------------------------ ---------
>> > To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe [at] jakarta.apache.org
>> > For additional commands, e-mail: general-help [at] jakarta.apache.org
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------ ---------
>> To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe [at] jakarta.apache.org
>> For additional commands, e-mail: general-help [at] jakarta.apache.org
>>
>>
>
>

--------------enig5CF8D1262D3EB84F31A68DAD
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Martin van den Bemt schrieb:
> [+1] Open up POI svn commit access.
> [-1] Don't open POI svn commit access, because...
>

[0] I don't care.

Best regards
Rainer Klute

Rainer Klute IT-Consulting GmbH
Dipl.-Inform.
Rainer Klute E-Mail: klute [at] rainer-klute.de
Körner Grund 24 Telefon: +49 172 2324824
D-44143 Dortmund Telefax: +49 231 5349423

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Is it necessary to resort to sarcasm and personalise this? Henri
Yandell's a good guy in my book and this only reflects badly on you.

Niall

On 12/16/06, Andrew C. Oliver <acoliver [at] apache.org> wrote:
> Hey I have an idea! If it doesn't pass this time we can call another
> vote right before the next holiday and hope that none of the POI PMC
> members are around... Then 3 months later do it again.
>
> -1 (because my votes don't seem to be counted and Henri will make up
> backstory for me)
>
> Henri Yandell wrote:
> > On 12/15/06, Henri Yandell <flamefew [at] gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On 12/15/06, Nick Burch <nick [at] torchbox.com> wrote:
> >> > On Fri, 15 Dec 2006, Martin van den Bemt wrote:
> >> > > Apache legal doesn't know anything about this..
> >> >
> >> > Back when I joined POI, I was told the apache legal team had
> >> suggested the
> >> > requirement.
> >> >
> >> > Perhaps one of the older POI committers can supply the original
> >> details?
> >>
> >> My understanding is that the advice is from Andy's personal lawyer
> >> many moons ago, maybe before POI joined the ASF.
> >>
> >> From an ASF point of view if someone breaks an NDA on our list or in a
> >> commit, then it's their head and not ours. We would respond as quickly
> >> as possible once we're aware of the issue by removing reference to
> >> that issue (and unless we think it was an honest mistake also yanking
> >> the commit rights of the person who broke it). I'm not sure if we'd
> >> legally have to do that or not - I don't know how NDAs fit into IP
> >> (copyright/trademarks), or if its just a personal agreement between
> >> two parties and the NDA breaker is just breaking that contract. I am
> >> not a lawyer etc etc, but the above is my understanding and would hold
> >> for any of our mailing lists.
> >>
> >> Public statements seem like an odd thing. There's no official archive
> >> of them at the ASF (and they're not made to the ASF), so I doubt they
> >> hold any weight or value to the ASF.
> >
> > Additionally - Harmony setup some extra process to help with making
> > sure everyone involved knew that the ASF didn't want any trade secrets
> > to be exposed - so there may be something that POI can learn from them
> > [Geir?].
> >
> > Hen
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------ ---------
> > To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe [at] jakarta.apache.org
> > For additional commands, e-mail: general-help [at] jakarta.apache.org
> >
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------ ---------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe [at] jakarta.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: general-help [at] jakarta.apache.org
>
>

On 12/15/06, Andrew C. Oliver <acoliver [at] apache.org> wrote:
> Hey I have an idea! If it doesn't pass this time we can call another
> vote right before the next holiday and hope that none of the POI PMC
> members are around... Then 3 months later do it again.

Reasoning being that Martin has done the same thing I did - asked
legal vp and secretary if they know anything about the need for POI to
be legally special and they don't.

The Harmony case is very cool to see - I suggest we copy what they're
doing (questionnaire that is then stored in the private pmc
directory).

> -1 (because my votes don't seem to be counted and Henri will make up
> backstory for me)

Your vote definitely counts - which one did I ignore?

My apologies if I've screwed the backstory up - I'd very much like to
know which parts.

Hen

Henri Yandell wrote:

> Reasoning being that Martin has done the same thing I did - asked
> legal vp and secretary if they know anything about the need for POI to
> be legally special and they don't.

Then either the ASF legal team wasn't involved in the discussion
Andy mentioned, or the current staff doesn't remember it, or their
assessment of the situation is different from Andy's.
Who can shed some light on this?

cheers,
Roland

> -1 from me.
>
> Harmony doesn't let anyone commit on their project unless they they
> sign a statement saying they haven't looked at Sun's source code[1].
> AFAIK this is a similar issue and the POI policy [2] is designed to
> protect POI, which as a user of POI is a good thing IMO. Even if this
> fear is actually unfounded seems like a sensible policy to err on the
> side of caution.

Just FYI, the policy doesn't mean anything legally, so it doesn't help anyone. We have the ICLA that
covers that. Keeping POI SVN closed, is as far as I could see, just based on the assumption that it
means something. Besides that if this is a policy of some kind, where are the records ?

Mvgr,
Martin

Andrew C. Oliver wrote:
> -1.
>
> You are of course misrepresenting the issue but okay. It is also
> because of the legal issues. Go read the archive and provide a good
> faith assertion rather than making an assumption. If YOU want to work
> on POI please submit some patches and following that should you wish to
> be a committer then respond that you are not now and have never been
> bound by a microsoft NDA regarding the file formats.

I am not making assumptions and if you can point to me to something, please do, since I don't see
any records anywhere (good place would eg be /private/pmc/jakarta, since I think you cannot expect
me to wade through all archives if this is according to you so important).

>
> what is your interest here? Do you have nothing better to do?

My interest here is the fact that I am legally responsible for what happens here. The fact that POI
is running on it's own, doing what it wants, not according to ASF and Jakarta policy and therefor in
fact is trying to act as a TLP/ separate entity, which it is not, is a big issue for me.
So the first step in the process is actually making you (the POI project) part of the Jakarta
community by removing all exceptions that seem to apply to POI (which in this case is SVN karma).
The other part that worries me is the POI PMC members, since they are the once that should provide
oversight (that is what being on the PMC is all about!) and they simply didn't mentor Nick on how to
do releases.

To make it personal for you Andy : Where were you with helping Nick out with the releases ? You are
the first to complain on any changes in Jakarta when POI is involved, but you are pretty silent for
the rest. Voting +1 for a release is a bit more than just sending a reply with +1, but I think you
probably already know that..

Mvgr,
Martin

Every legal document has to be on file and known to the secretary and he has no knowledge of such
documents, so from an ASF point of view, this is non existing. If there is something on file I would
love to hear where.

Mvgr,
Martin

Roland Weber wrote:
> Henri Yandell wrote:
>
>> Reasoning being that Martin has done the same thing I did - asked
>> legal vp and secretary if they know anything about the need for POI to
>> be legally special and they don't.
>
> Then either the ASF legal team wasn't involved in the discussion
> Andy mentioned, or the current staff doesn't remember it, or their
> assessment of the situation is different from Andy's.
> Who can shed some light on this?
>
> cheers,
> Roland
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------ ---------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe [at] jakarta.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: general-help [at] jakarta.apache.org
>
>
>

Will Glass-Husain wrote:
> Andy-- No one was going to railroad this through without input from
> POI. See my previous email where I insisted that we have POI
> participation. (and I would have -1'd this automatically if it had
> been lacking). The discussion was civil up until recently.
>
> I am wondering about this vote though. Why now? and what's the
> significance of POI/Jakarta svn access merging? To me it seems the
> flattening of svn is of little significance. After a year with the
> new structure, I see individual cases where committers have
> cross-pollinated (in commons, perhaps) but it hasn't seemed to make a
> big impact for many subprojects.

It's the special position I have problems with.

>
> So, then - Martin - why are you calling for a vote? Is there a
> pressing need to get access to POI svn? Are there patches being
> submitted but not going in? Are you just trying to clean up Jakarta,
> make it more definable? Or is there something going on with POI that
> we should discuss publically?

See my reply to Andy for this. (if you cannot find it i'll try to find a link).

>
> There's a reasonable discussion that could be held about the role of
> POI and Jakarta. Maybe we should have that discussion instead of
> voting on a controversial but practically insignificant issue.

That is what I planned after this vote, based on the result. This vote gives a nice view on the fact
if they even want to be part of Jakarta. Andy doesn't looking at his reply of going TLP, Incubator
(?) or moving out of Apache. The part that sparked this vote, is the releases that were made (not
blaming Nick here, I think he is definitely an asset to Jakarta!) and it was made very clearly that
POI needs mentoring from other Jakarta people, which cannot happen if they want to keep the gates
closed. Opening the gates is a first step in the right direction.

Hope that answers your question / concerns.

Mvgr,
Martin

Andrew C. Oliver wrote:
> Hey I have an idea! If it doesn't pass this time we can call another
> vote right before the next holiday and hope that none of the POI PMC
> members are around... Then 3 months later do it again.

This is a different vote. This one is specific about POI. The previous vote was about opening the
whole of Jakarta and if certain projects had objections they could state that.
And when I do things is up to me, you don't own my time, as much as I don't own your time. The main
problem here is that (correcting you here) Jakarta PMC Members that represent POI are not around
when they need to do their job of giving oversight.
Stop blaming others (in this case me and Henri) and start looking in the right direction.
My intentions here are good, hence the reason why the vote was so "generic" (just opening up svn
karma), so POI can leave the Island and is willing to accept help from our other Jakarta folks. That
opposed to state to the board that I cannot be responsible for POI anymore.

Currently I just see you screaming and shouting, instead of giving useful feedback. And pointing to
the legal issues that you think merits the svn karma limitation : Since you are not appointed by the
board to handle POI's legal issues (if they even are there), you should send and inform the PMC of
the history, reasoning and records that you have, so the proper person (in this case I was appointed
for Jakarta) can take that info to the board and discuss the situation and get an official position
on that.

>
> -1 (because my votes don't seem to be counted and Henri will make up
> backstory for me)

Your because isn't much of a reason, since your vote was counted and as you can see in this vote:
SVN permission stayed closed. The problem here is that the reasons that were given at that time,
don't seem to apply (which is something I learned at Apachecon), hence the new vote.

What you mean by Henri making up backstory for you, I don't know exactly, but he just states the way
he knows / heard, so if he is wrong, please share the truth with us.

Mvgr,
Martin

On 12/16/06, Martin van den Bemt <mllist [at] mvdb.net> wrote:
> > -1 from me.
> >
> > Harmony doesn't let anyone commit on their project unless they they
> > sign a statement saying they haven't looked at Sun's source code[1].
> > AFAIK this is a similar issue and the POI policy [2] is designed to
> > protect POI, which as a user of POI is a good thing IMO. Even if this
> > fear is actually unfounded seems like a sensible policy to err on the
> > side of caution.
>
> Just FYI, the policy doesn't mean anything legally, so it doesn't help anyone. We have the ICLA that
> covers that. Keeping POI SVN closed, is as far as I could see, just based on the assumption that it
> means something. Besides that if this is a policy of some kind, where are the records ?

Why is it any different than Harmony? If someone has received
knowledge of MS propriety formats under a NDA then wouldn't using that
knowledge to contribute to POI put the POI project at risk? If the
ICLA means that legally from an ASF POV it doesn't matter since the
responsibility/liability would be with the contributor then the same
logic could be applied to harmony. Seems to me that even if the "ASF
is covered" at the end of the day avoiding a legal issue with a big
entity such as MS is far more desirable than getting into a "tangle"
in the first place.

I also think its a mistake to deal with whatever issues people think
there are in POI via a vote. Back in March the POI devs voted to
exclude POI from this policy of opening SVN access. If we think the
reason underlying POI's exclusion from this policy is not valid then
it would have been far better to start a discussion with them
regarding this first - rather than launching straight into a vote. I'd
have rather seem an attempt at consensus first rather than going
straight for conflict.

Seems to me that svn access isn't the root of the issue here and
therefore a red herring, since changing that isn't IMO going to
resolve whatever the real issues people think there are.

Niall

> Mvgr,
> Martin

On Fri, 2006-12-15 at 18:25 -0500, Andrew C. Oliver wrote:

[...]

> what is your interest here? Do you have nothing better to do?

You *might* (at some point) read up what part of Apache the POI project
is in and who is currently legally responsible for it.

This is not your small, private show on sf.net as you seem to think. You
are, as a part of the ASF, bound to our legal structure, our rules and
our community. Get used to it. If you don't want to be a part of
Jakarta, apply for TLP.

Best regards
Henning


>
> -Andy
>
> Martin van den Bemt wrote:
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > You probably think "Hey I have seen a similar vote started by Henri on 27-3-2006" and the outcome
> > was 3 -1 from POI so their SVN is still closed for Jakarta committers.
> >
> > The reasoning behind this is that POI is still trying to stick to what it Jakarta once was and it is
> > time they join the club completely.
> >
> > [+1] Open up POI svn commit access.
> > [-1] Don't open POI svn commit access, because...
> >
> > The vote will be open for a week.
> >
> > Mvgr,
> > Martin
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------ ---------
> > To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe [at] jakarta.apache.org
> > For additional commands, e-mail: general-help [at] jakarta.apache.org
> >
> >
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------ ---------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe [at] jakarta.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: general-help [at] jakarta.apache.org
>
--
Henning P. Schmiedehausen -- hps [at] intermeta.de | J2EE, Linux,
91054 Buckenhof, Germany -- +49 9131 506540 | Apache person
Open Source Consulting, Development, Design | Velocity - Turbine guy

"Save the cheerleader. Save the world."

On Fri, 2006-12-15 at 20:30 -0500, Andrew C. Oliver wrote:
[...]

> I would like to see a formats.apache.org project which was devoted to

We do know that you are not serious here.

[...]

> With the launch of Buni (http://buni.org) my time for repeating votes

Domain Name:BUNI.ORG
Created On:06-Oct-2006 13:29:38 UTC
Last Updated On:14-Dec-2006 19:11:28 UTC
Expiration Date:06-Oct-2007 13:29:38 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:Register.com Inc. (R71-LROR)
Status:CLIENT TRANSFER PROHIBITED
Registrant ID:4754392604712011
Registrant Name:Andrew Oliver
Registrant Organization:Bunisoft, Inc.
Registrant Street1:5426 Lake Vista Dr.
Registrant Street2:
Registrant Street3:
Registrant City:Durham
Registrant State/Province:NC
Registrant Postal Code:27712
Registrant Country:US
Registrant Phone:+1.9193218856

So what is the point? Just rebranding POI under another name? Why do you
care if you have so much better stuff to do?

Best regards
Henning

--
Henning P. Schmiedehausen -- hps [at] intermeta.de | J2EE, Linux,
91054 Buckenhof, Germany -- +49 9131 506540 | Apache person
Open Source Consulting, Development, Design | Velocity - Turbine guy

"Save the cheerleader. Save the world."

Hello Niall,

> Why is it any different than Harmony?

Harmony requires that an "Authorized Contributor Questionnaire"
be signed. The ACQ surely has been reviewd by the ASF legal team,
and signatures are legally significant.
http://harmony.apache.org/auth_cont_quest.html

The POI "Get Involved" page only mentions this:
> Those submitting patches that show insight into the file format
> may be asked to state explicitly that they are eligible or
> possibly sign an agreement.
http://jakarta.apache.org/poi/getinvolved/index.html

"may be"? "possibly"? Did the ASF legal team prepare such a
document for signing or not? If they did, shouldn't it be
linked on the web page? And why isn't every contributor required
to state or sign something? Who decides who will have to state
or sign? And who will process and keep track of the statements
or signed documents if not the ASF legal team, who obviously
are not aware of any such thing?

If there is an established procedure addressing these questions,
it should be documented on the web page. If there is not, the
statement quoted above is just idle.

> If someone has received
> knowledge of MS propriety formats under a NDA then wouldn't using that
> knowledge to contribute to POI put the POI project at risk?

Yes it would. That's why the page mentions that people with
access to NDA'd information are not allowed to contribute.
As far as I can tell, there is no discussion about this policy.
There is a discussion about access restrictions in SVN. Let me
throw the following statements/opinions into this discussion:

1. Jakarta committers have proven that they are responsible
developers, otherwise they wouldn't have been voted committers.

2. No responsible developer would just commit some code to a
Jakarta subproject with which he/she is not familiar, or
ignore the rules and policies in place for that subproject.

3. If current committers show interest in contributing to the
POI subproject, they will make an appearance on the mailing
lists and submit patches to the bug tracking system for review.
There is plenty of opportunity to educate them about the policy
and to question them about possible NDA contamination.

4. If anyone would commit unwanted/dangerous code to POI
(directly without patch review!) that contribution would
immediately be detected from the commit message that is
automatically generated, and would be vetoed and undone
by the regular committers to the subproject.

This discussion is about removing technical barriers in SVN,
not about throwing random (barbed ;-) code into POI. It's
about running a community based on mutual trust and review
as opposed to walls and fences. At least that's how I see it.

> I also think its a mistake to deal with whatever issues people think
> there are in POI via a vote. Back in March the POI devs voted to
> exclude POI from this policy of opening SVN access. If we think the
> reason underlying POI's exclusion from this policy is not valid then
> it would have been far better to start a discussion with them
> regarding this first - rather than launching straight into a vote. I'd
> have rather seem an attempt at consensus first rather than going
> straight for conflict.

+1

> Seems to me that svn access isn't the root of the issue here and
> therefore a red herring, since changing that isn't IMO going to
> resolve whatever the real issues people think there are.

+1

cheers,
Roland

On 12/17/06, Roland Weber <http-async [at] dubioso.net> wrote:
> Hello Niall,
>
> > Why is it any different than Harmony?
>
> Harmony requires that an "Authorized Contributor Questionnaire"
> be signed. The ACQ surely has been reviewd by the ASF legal team,
> and signatures are legally significant.
> http://harmony.apache.org/auth_cont_quest.html
>
> The POI "Get Involved" page only mentions this:
> > Those submitting patches that show insight into the file format
> > may be asked to state explicitly that they are eligible or
> > possibly sign an agreement.
> http://jakarta.apache.org/poi/getinvolved/index.html
>
> "may be"? "possibly"? Did the ASF legal team prepare such a
> document for signing or not? If they did, shouldn't it be
> linked on the web page? And why isn't every contributor required
> to state or sign something? Who decides who will have to state
> or sign? And who will process and keep track of the statements
> or signed documents if not the ASF legal team, who obviously
> are not aware of any such thing?
>
> If there is an established procedure addressing these questions,
> it should be documented on the web page. If there is not, the
> statement quoted above is just idle.

I agree there should be an established policy endorsed by the PMC. My
fear is that Andy Oliver either won't have the patience to do what it
takes or fail to get anywhere because he pi**es off too many people in
the process. Hopefully he'll prove me wrong or someone else from POI
will sort it out.

> > If someone has received
> > knowledge of MS propriety formats under a NDA then wouldn't using that
> > knowledge to contribute to POI put the POI project at risk?
>
> Yes it would. That's why the page mentions that people with
> access to NDA'd information are not allowed to contribute.
> As far as I can tell, there is no discussion about this policy.
> There is a discussion about access restrictions in SVN. Let me
> throw the following statements/opinions into this discussion:
>
> 1. Jakarta committers have proven that they are responsible
> developers, otherwise they wouldn't have been voted committers.
>
> 2. No responsible developer would just commit some code to a
> Jakarta subproject with which he/she is not familiar, or
> ignore the rules and policies in place for that subproject.

Generally this is true, although I have seen a couple of occasions
where committers have made code changes on Commons components they had
no prior involvement with without pinging the mailing list first.

> 3. If current committers show interest in contributing to the
> POI subproject, they will make an appearance on the mailing
> lists and submit patches to the bug tracking system for review.
> There is plenty of opportunity to educate them about the policy
> and to question them about possible NDA contamination.
>
> 4. If anyone would commit unwanted/dangerous code to POI
> (directly without patch review!) that contribution would
> immediately be detected from the commit message that is
> automatically generated, and would be vetoed and undone
> by the regular committers to the subproject.
>
> This discussion is about removing technical barriers in SVN,
> not about throwing random (barbed ;-) code into POI. It's
> about running a community based on mutual trust and review
> as opposed to walls and fences. At least that's how I see it.

Personally I'm +/-0 on removing svn barriers anyway. I don't believe
any exisiting committer that starts to contribute to a project in the
normal way isn't going to get given commit access pretty quickly.
Anyway generally I don't disagree with the sentiments/opinions you've
expressed - but I do think POI has grounds for a slightly different
policy than most of our code bases since what they deal with is the IP
of a large company that if infringed could cause us problems in the
same way as with Harmony and Sun's source code. IMO then the
contrubuting policy for POI needs to be resolved/formally established
first and svn access should be decided afterwards once we have a
policy endorsed by the PMC.

Niall

> > I also think its a mistake to deal with whatever issues people think
> > there are in POI via a vote. Back in March the POI devs voted to
> > exclude POI from this policy of opening SVN access. If we think the
> > reason underlying POI's exclusion from this policy is not valid then
> > it would have been far better to start a discussion with them
> > regarding this first - rather than launching straight into a vote. I'd
> > have rather seem an attempt at consensus first rather than going
> > straight for conflict.
>
> +1
>
> > Seems to me that svn access isn't the root of the issue here and
> > therefore a red herring, since changing that isn't IMO going to
> > resolve whatever the real issues people think there are.
>
> +1
>
> cheers,
> Roland
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------ ---------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe [at] jakarta.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: general-help [at] jakarta.apache.org
>
>

Niall Pemberton wrote:
> On 12/16/06, Martin van den Bemt <mllist [at] mvdb.net> wrote:
>> > -1 from me.
>> >
>> > Harmony doesn't let anyone commit on their project unless they they
>> > sign a statement saying they haven't looked at Sun's source code[1].
>> > AFAIK this is a similar issue and the POI policy [2] is designed to
>> > protect POI, which as a user of POI is a good thing IMO. Even if this
>> > fear is actually unfounded seems like a sensible policy to err on the
>> > side of caution.
>>
>> Just FYI, the policy doesn't mean anything legally, so it doesn't help
>> anyone. We have the ICLA that
>> covers that. Keeping POI SVN closed, is as far as I could see, just
>> based on the assumption that it
>> means something. Besides that if this is a policy of some kind,
>> where are the records ?
>
> Why is it any different than Harmony? If someone has received
> knowledge of MS propriety formats under a NDA then wouldn't using that
> knowledge to contribute to POI put the POI project at risk? If the
> ICLA means that legally from an ASF POV it doesn't matter since the
> responsibility/liability would be with the contributor then the same
> logic could be applied to harmony. Seems to me that even if the "ASF
> is covered" at the end of the day avoiding a legal issue with a big
> entity such as MS is far more desirable than getting into a "tangle"
> in the first place.

I am not saying the legal stuff would be bad, just that currently nothing is in place to have that
covered. With harmony this is a Harmony policy, which is handled by the PMC and there are records
and the board is aware of this. So effectively we don't have anything in place, just a statement on
the website, so if we needed any protection based on the NDA stuff, we don't have anything to show
for. I cannot start with getting the legal stuff figured out when POI is acting as it's own entity,
without even any oversight from the Jakarta PMC members representing POI. But I think I made that
point clear in some of the replies i've given.

>
> I also think its a mistake to deal with whatever issues people think
> there are in POI via a vote. Back in March the POI devs voted to
> exclude POI from this policy of opening SVN access. If we think the
> reason underlying POI's exclusion from this policy is not valid then
> it would have been far better to start a discussion with them
> regarding this first - rather than launching straight into a vote. I'd
> have rather seem an attempt at consensus first rather than going
> straight for conflict.

I could have started this in another way, although I doubt consensus would be reached if I did that
another way. POI is living in it's own universe currently (we are even talking about "them") and
since this issue concerns the whole of Jakarta and things need to happen now,because of the lack of
oversight given by the PMC members representing POI. Opening up POI is a first step in the right
direction, next steps would be mentoring the POI project, get the "legal issue" straightened out
(that is making an official Jakarta policy if that is needed and having official records).
Alternatives like POI going TLP (as was mentioned by a couple of people) would also be an option, so
that they deal with the board directly, but since the POI committers aren't ready for that (see the
mentoring part), that would be a hard case to sell.

>
> Seems to me that svn access isn't the root of the issue here and
> therefore a red herring, since changing that isn't IMO going to
> resolve whatever the real issues people think there are.

svn access is the first step towards improvement. Svn access for me *is* a real issue, I think the
vote made that clear. Don't forget the vote in March where everyone voted +1 except the POI
committers. Now we are 8 months further and it is time they join the majority in my opinion. If they
want to have separate svn access at this time, I think they are stating that they do not want to be
part of Jakarta.

Mvgr,
Martin

>
> Niall
>
>> Mvgr,
>> Martin
>
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Niall Pemberton wrote:
> On 12/17/06, Roland Weber <http-async [at] dubioso.net> wrote:
>> Hello Niall,
>>
>> > Why is it any different than Harmony?
>>
>> Harmony requires that an "Authorized Contributor Questionnaire"
>> be signed. The ACQ surely has been reviewd by the ASF legal team,
>> and signatures are legally significant.
>> http://harmony.apache.org/auth_cont_quest.html
>>
>> The POI "Get Involved" page only mentions this:
>> > Those submitting patches that show insight into the file format
>> > may be asked to state explicitly that they are eligible or
>> > possibly sign an agreement.
>> http://jakarta.apache.org/poi/getinvolved/index.html
>>
>> "may be"? "possibly"? Did the ASF legal team prepare such a
>> document for signing or not? If they did, shouldn't it be
>> linked on the web page? And why isn't every contributor required
>> to state or sign something? Who decides who will have to state
>> or sign? And who will process and keep track of the statements
>> or signed documents if not the ASF legal team, who obviously
>> are not aware of any such thing?
>>
>> If there is an established procedure addressing these questions,
>> it should be documented on the web page. If there is not, the
>> statement quoted above is just idle.
>
> I agree there should be an established policy endorsed by the PMC. My
> fear is that Andy Oliver either won't have the patience to do what it
> takes or fail to get anywhere because he pi**es off too many people in
> the process. Hopefully he'll prove me wrong or someone else from POI
> will sort it out.

I simply don't care to be honest. Nick is doing lot's of work for POI, without any guidance from the
people you anticipate of giving guidance, which is what I care about. So my first goal is helping
out Nick so he can continue the good work he is doing over there.

>
>> > If someone has received
>> > knowledge of MS propriety formats under a NDA then wouldn't using that
>> > knowledge to contribute to POI put the POI project at risk?
>>
>> Yes it would. That's why the page mentions that people with
>> access to NDA'd information are not allowed to contribute.
>> As far as I can tell, there is no discussion about this policy.
>> There is a discussion about access restrictions in SVN. Let me
>> throw the following statements/opinions into this discussion:
>>
>> 1. Jakarta committers have proven that they are responsible
>> developers, otherwise they wouldn't have been voted committers.
>>
>> 2. No responsible developer would just commit some code to a
>> Jakarta subproject with which he/she is not familiar, or
>> ignore the rules and policies in place for that subproject.
>
> Generally this is true, although I have seen a couple of occasions
> where committers have made code changes on Commons components they had
> no prior involvement with without pinging the mailing list first.

And we educated those people.

>
>> 3. If current committers show interest in contributing to the
>> POI subproject, they will make an appearance on the mailing
>> lists and submit patches to the bug tracking system for review.
>> There is plenty of opportunity to educate them about the policy
>> and to question them about possible NDA contamination.
>>
>> 4. If anyone would commit unwanted/dangerous code to POI
>> (directly without patch review!) that contribution would
>> immediately be detected from the commit message that is
>> automatically generated, and would be vetoed and undone
>> by the regular committers to the subproject.
>>
>> This discussion is about removing technical barriers in SVN,
>> not about throwing random (barbed ;-) code into POI. It's
>> about running a community based on mutual trust and review
>> as opposed to walls and fences. At least that's how I see it.
>
> Personally I'm +/-0 on removing svn barriers anyway. I don't believe
> any exisiting committer that starts to contribute to a project in the
> normal way isn't going to get given commit access pretty quickly.
> Anyway generally I don't disagree with the sentiments/opinions you've
> expressed - but I do think POI has grounds for a slightly different
> policy than most of our code bases since what they deal with is the IP
> of a large company that if infringed could cause us problems in the
> same way as with Harmony and Sun's source code. IMO then the
> contrubuting policy for POI needs to be resolved/formally established
> first and svn access should be decided afterwards once we have a
> policy endorsed by the PMC.

The first problem we have to deal with is that releases aren't done the way the ASF wants them to be
done, which is currently the legal issue at hand. Part of the problem is that they (sorry bad word
choices coming here) don't trust the rest of Jakarta of doing the right thing and the rest of
Jakarta trusts them to do the right thing. They have proven they don't do the right thing atm (to be
clear : not blaming Nick here!), which hurts Jakarta as a whole.

Maybe repeating myself here :)

Mvgr,
Martin

hy im happy to join to ur party


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Rainer Klute schrieb:
> Martin van den Bemt schrieb:
>
>> [+1] Open up POI svn commit access.
>> [-1] Don't open POI svn commit access, because...
>>
>>
>
> [0] I don't care.
>
Having read all the contribution <http://dict.leo.org/ende?lp=3Dende&p=3D=
/gQPU.&search=3Dcontribution>s on this thread, I revoke my vote quoted ab=
ove and instead vote as follows:

[+1] Open up POI svn commit access.

Please read my vote not just as referring to a technical issue concerning=
commit access or not. My vote is a clear statement to

* keep POI under the Jakarta hood,
* stick to the ASF rules, and
* do everything that is needed to straighten things out.

I am a POI committer.

Best regards
Rainer Klute

Rainer Klute IT-Consulting GmbH
Dipl.-Inform.
Rainer Klute E-Mail: klute [at] rainer-klute.de
Körner Grund 24 Telefon: +49 172 2324824
D-44143 Dortmund Telefax: +49 231 5349423

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On 12/15/06, Henri Yandell <flamefew [at] gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/15/06, Nick Burch <nick [at] torchbox.com> wrote:
> > On Fri, 15 Dec 2006, Martin van den Bemt wrote:
> > > Apache legal doesn't know anything about this..
> >
> > Back when I joined POI, I was told the apache legal team had suggested the
> > requirement.
> >
> > Perhaps one of the older POI committers can supply the original details?
>
> My understanding is that the advice is from Andy's personal lawyer
> many moons ago, maybe before POI joined the ASF.

I've sat and re-read all email I've ever received from Andy and I
can't find anything to this effect - so it's no longer my
understanding. Apologies for misleading everyone.

Hen

> From an ASF point of view if someone breaks an NDA on our list or in a
> commit, then it's their head and not ours. We would respond as quickly
> as possible once we're aware of the issue by removing reference to
> that issue (and unless we think it was an honest mistake also yanking
> the commit rights of the person who broke it). I'm not sure if we'd
> legally have to do that or not - I don't know how NDAs fit into IP
> (copyright/trademarks), or if its just a personal agreement between
> two parties and the NDA breaker is just breaking that contract. I am
> not a lawyer etc etc, but the above is my understanding and would hold
> for any of our mailing lists.
>
> Public statements seem like an odd thing. There's no official archive
> of them at the ASF (and they're not made to the ASF), so I doubt they
> hold any weight or value to the ASF.
>
> Hen
>

Wow! The one weekend I decide not to check mail!! :)

Am replying to the original message for convenience, but have read the
thread till this point.

Basically, the amount of negativity towards POI project in the thread
seems seems quite painful.

At the end of the day, I believe we keep saying 'Apache is about
communities'. Legal oversight is important, but if its at the cost of
destroying a community, what's the use?

I would have voted -1 on this, not because of legal reasons (which I
don't have too strong a view on any more) but because I do not
understand the need for this current intervention. 'Majority' does not
seem to be a good enough reason. Errors in build which have been
promised a fix does not seem a big enuf reason either.

However, given the strongly negative tone of this thread, I do not
wish to debate this further. Therefore count me in as a 'don't care
any more'

I'd have been happy seeing POI move to a TLP. However, some of the
comments in this thread seem to preclude that possibility either. I
think his leaves the community between a rock and a hard place ... I
dont want us to be subsumed as a commons project

Regards
-
Avik


Quoting Martin van den Bemt <mllist [at] mvdb.net>:

> Hi everyone,
>
> You probably think "Hey I have seen a similar vote started by Henri
> on 27-3-2006" and the outcome
> was 3 -1 from POI so their SVN is still closed for Jakarta committers.
>
> The reasoning behind this is that POI is still trying to stick to
> what it Jakarta once was and it is
> time they join the club completely.
>
> [+1] Open up POI svn commit access.
> [-1] Don't open POI svn commit access, because...
>
> The vote will be open for a week.
>
> Mvgr,
> Martin
>
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