Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton
2004-Dec-15 12:32 UTC
[Samba] [proposal] Samba Software Foundation
dear samba users and developers, i'd like to put to you a proposal for your respectful consideration: it is an idea that i believe has strategic merit for the open source community and OS users as a whole. these words are chosen carefully and the reasons will become apparent later: that i begin as an example. as you are no doubt aware, there have been some seriously damaging (but not obviously so) decisions made for which the parties involved, myself included, owe you quite a debt, because the down-side of those decisions has led, in my opinion, to significant delays in "opening windows to a wider world". what i am proposing is the introduction of a "Samba Software Foundation", which would be modelled on the well-known "Apache Software Foundation"'s charter. to kick-start that process - to bring some incentive to carrying it forward, what i propose to do is: if the SSF is set up in line with the way i envisage here, i promise to assign all samba-related code that i have ever written _to_ the SSF - with some conditions that will be aimed at protecting YOU - the samba community - not me, as i will point out later. now, as you are no doubt aware, i believe the ASF charter to have the following key points: 1) that all contributors treat each other with mutual respect. 2) that all code contributed is DUAL copyrighted assigned: one copy is kept by the contributor, and one identical copy is kept by the ASF 3) that acceptance of contributions are judged on TECHNICAL merit. 4) voting and karma. note the contrast between 2) and what i propose to contribute, above: namely that i will assign _all_ my samba-related code to a newly formed SSF (without holding dual copyright myself). one of the key conditions on that happening as follows: that 3) above, for the Samba Software Foundation, would need to be: 3) that acceptance of contributions are considered for STRATEGIC as WELL as technical grounds. for example: if some code is dog-slow and therefore would normally be rejected on technical grounds, if it opens up some strategically important area, then despite its technical abominability, it would STILL go ahead and be included. ... and probably given a high priority for optimisation and/or replacement with a better solution, should some poor sucker turn out to be actually using it and suffering greatly, but having no other choice, they carry on regardless. you get the idea, i am sure. now, here comes the difficult bit for me - namely that i have to give you some reasons as to _why_ i am advocating the introduction of an SSF, because i have to write about matters that i have written about many times, initially because i was very very hurt by what happened, later because i was concerned that the things that happened to me would happen to other people, and later _still_ because i was concerned that the samba project, despite its progress in so many ways, has not, in my opinion, progressed in any _really_ new or innovative areas that make a significant difference to Open Source OS users. particularly business users who are still totally dependent on windows environments to do day-to-day activities, in constant fear of wrecking their career or business prospects not because of something they did but because of something they _didn't_ do and didn't _know_ could happen or didn't believe it would happen to them, today - a virus or a spyware attack. [you only have to look at the two or more open source exchange projects which have been initiated on sf.net in the past four years and have both stalled, and the fact that they are based on samba tng not samba 3, to recognise that samba's usefulness is seriously curtailed. and also the sf.net freedce project which has had DCOM development environment support since 2000, but no integration with NT security or _any_ version of samba, and so consequently is completely useless.] so i am going to outline, under each of the headings above (1, 2 and 3) what _has_ happened - briefly - and i think you will see very clearly that if the SSF _had_ been in place, history would be totally totally different. 1) that all contributors treat each other with mutual respect. for the people who know their samba history, it is an understatement for me to say that i do not need to say _anything_ more on this one. 2) that all code contributed is DUAL copyrighted assigned: one copy is kept by the contributor, and one identical copy is kept by the ASF this one _does_ need some background explanation. i began working on samba's nt domain code in august 1997 with paul ashton (mr "welcome to the samba domain"). i was _delighted_ - and a little scared. paul and i had begun to take a swing at microsoft (nyer, nyer) and yet, strangely, they were quietly encouraging. i found a question the other day in the september 1997 ntbugtraq archives from paul leach, asking if we'd considered such-and-such a case. as the amount of exploration and coding increased, my concentration on wholesale cut-and-paste of previously written header files and c files decreased - and the original files i cut/paste from, even though they contained no code contributions from andrew or jeremy: due to a misunderstanding, i often included their names at the top of the Copyright notices. 100,000 extra lines of code, spread across over sixty or eightly extra source code files, and over three years later, code that i had written, a large number of which i own exclusive copyright over, contained copyright notices of people who had not contributed a single line. against this background, when as you know things started to turn a bit nasty, at the third CIFS conference andrew mistakenly said "jeremy's code" in connection with my first six months experimental work on the samba ntdom project - code which saw first production usage in samba 2.0 for the Domain Membership functionality and _reeaaally_ basic PDC functionality, amongst other things. as you can imagine, i was pissed. so pissed that, in about 2001 i conceived the idea of "Disputing" copyright of the samba source code - and in my opinion, with good grounds, too. now, the consequences of _that_ would be that all users of Samba source code would need to cease and desist use and distribution until the matter was resolved! due to a former case, as far as i am aware, i am still registered with a US civil department as one of the joint copyright holders of samba's source code [it's a long and completely different story where some bastards tried to steal samba and sell it for $USD 10k a shot to sun microsystems, and the reason why none of the copyright holders could claim compensation from the bastards was because in order to make a copyright claim in the U.S. you have to _register_ the product and its copyright holders!! no other country that respects copyright law requires this bloody stupid registration] so you see now why i promise to assign all copyright of all samba-related code i have ever written to a Samba Software Foundation, should it ever come into being in the form that i outline here. the purpose of 2) is to protect the community and the foundation from creating exactly these kinds of purple nasties. [a purple nasty is what you get if you mix a blue-coloured aniseed liqueur with a red-coloured cream liqueur. the cream happily curdles and also goes purple. sadly, purple nasties are also undrinkable: i did try because i didn't want an entire glass of 40% cocktail to go to waste without knowing what it tasted like. pfh.] 3) that acceptance of contributions are considered for STRATEGIC as WELL as technical grounds. i've hinted at some examples in the form of the two stalled exchange for unix projects and the freedce project (all are on sf.net), but i haven't given any details or justifications as to why i believe 3) is really, REALLY important. this is going to be difficult: andrew, jeremy, please bear with me while i work out how to say this, and PLEASE, PLEASE think just as carefully should you choose to reply. i'll start with things that i know, with something that jeremy once said to me: i believe that will help. jeremy once said to me, in 2000 - about march or so - at one time when i was having particular difficulties in communicating a number of complex issues - that both he and andrew are not managers, they're strongly technically minded. he also said that he, too, had difficulties convincing andrew of key issues, and that he had to stick to his guns and simply say, "andrew, you're wrong". also, recently, andrew reiterated that he makes decisions based on technical merit, and that the standards set are being continuously raised. the trouble with that approach is that, in combination with the level of technical expertise required to even BEGIN to contribute to the samba project, the standards that andrew has set appear _extremely_ intimidating. it also leaves andrew in the unfortunate position of having to make all the decisions, and the bar _can_ be raised, and moved sideways, and moved again... i'm sorry to have to raise this, but you see what i am hinting at _could_ happen, and, unfortunately, difficult as it is to believe because andrew is so well respected, there were times in 2000 where i felt that the bar _was_ being moved sideways, upwards, crossways and any way possible. to mitigate against the down-side of such high expertise and standards and risks, something has got to give, but also in such a way that the quality of work that reaches production environments is not adversely affected (except where admins or developers actively CHOOSE to deploy potentially foot-shooting code!) so, i believe i've laid out enough for people to be able to draw the obvious conclusion: namely that by allowing code contributions based on "strategic" grounds, there at least exists the possibility to add in experimental or radically innovative work that suffers from technical warts and down-right stupidity, working happily alongside and often using services and components that have been in production use for nearly a decade, with distribution measured in millions of units. 3) is about future-proofing, opening up possibilities that would otherwise be closed - and remain closed on "technical" grounds - and it's about weighing and balancing ease-of-use (for developers and users) against potential "technical optimisation and innovation". a simple example that is easily understood is that a potential coding optimisation which is technically brilliant could be delayed indefinitely under 3), due to the optimisation somehow making life genuinely difficult for new developers to _begin_ to understand how to get their new project up-and-running using the samba4 runtime developer environment, as opposed to requiring a few weeks or even months preparatory learning, should this "brilliant" technical optimisation be added. 4) voting and karma. i'm not _entirely_ sure exactly how ASF karma works, but from empirical observation, i believe voting to be involving project developers sending a digitally signed +1, 0 or -1, and karma to be involved with "who breaks the automated builds on checkins". the thing is that both these things are actually ingrained into the checkin scripts of the source repository, with an automatic link [cvs blame] back to the "karma" thing. i'm simply mentioning 4) for completeness but i am not sufficiently clued up on its details to be able to advise on it or advocate its use. so. as you can see, if a Samba Software Foundation _had_ been in place in 1996, the following things would almost certainly not have happened: 1) my code checkins would had to have improved because my karma would be absolute mud otherwise. 2) i would have been able to propose the TNG named pipes architecture for inclusion in samba 2.0, in order to open up a really important strategic avenue - for: a) in 1999 / 2000, Sun Microsystems to be able to drop the crap bits (the file server) of the AFPS code they bought from AT & T for $USD N million, and use smbd along with all the _working_ NT Domain services they bought that didn't rely on anything to do with POSIX. b) the exchange for unix project to proceed using a stable production environment samba - without any code modifications. c) cliffs, samba 3, samba 4 and samba tng's services to be able to progress and help bootstrap each other in an accelerated manner d) other people wishing to get an introduction to samba to be able to bite off a small self-contained 30,000 line project instead of being intimidated by 350,000 lines of GPL code e) FreeDCE and other MSRPC-compatible projects to utilise the best components of all worlds. f) the Wine team to be able to hook in to the samba project at some critical interface points _without_ having to worry about licensing issues, instead of having to consider writing their own non-GPL'd version of smbd! 3) it would have been impossible for me to swear in quite so much frustration - not least because the reasons _why_ i was getting so agitated would have been tempered, but also because it demonstrates lack of respect, and that would, if it had continued, resulted in me being banned from contributing. 4) all my code contributions would have been dual-copyrighted owned, just like everyone else, to the SSF, and the issue of getting pissed off _at all_ at things like "this is jeremy's code" simply would be moot [i would likely have said "oi!" and left it at that] as you can clearly see, history would be radically, _radically_ different had there been an SSF in place. now. there is one thing left for me to outline: it's the conditions that i seek for the samba-related code i own to be assigned to the SSF, should it be created. on careful consideration, i believe that they make a lot of sense and the reasons why i am proposing them are pretty abundantly obvious. 1) the strategic thing. 2) that if any SSF project developer even _thinks_ of breaking the charter's conditions of the SSF (especially the one about mutual respect), copyright of the code i assign AUTOMATICALLY reverts unconditionally to dual-ownership (to me and to the SSF, from being owned wholly by the SSF). 3) if it's either andrew or jeremy who does the breaking (privately, publicly or to _any_ third party), then copyright AUTOMATICALLY reverts unconditionally to me (i.e. _from_ being owned wholly by the SSF, _to_ being wholly owned by _me_) 4) if _i_ ever break the charter's conditions, 2) and 3) AUTOMATICALLY become null and void conditions (but 6) remains still in effect, always) 5) condition 4) cannot become null or void at any time - ever. not even if there's some stupid dickhead country, planet or universe under which agreements and conditions like the one's outlined here don't apply. 6) if a full-blown bun-fight occurs, and both myself AND either andrew or jeremy or both break the charter's conditions (not necessarily at the same time), then on permanent and irrevocable resignation of the party / parties that did the breaking, the code will again become assigned ownership of the SSF [and, obviously, lose it again if the breaker(s) is(are) allowed to rejoin the SSF]. 7) if another project has an OSI-approved license that happens to be incompatible with the SSF's license, the board of the SSF will, if it proves significant and relevant, give serious consideration to licensing relevant parts of the code assigned by me under an alternative OSI-approved that _is_ compatible with that projects's license - _or_ - the developers associated with SSF projects will give priority to writing code and putting in place strategically designed interfaces that will help accomodate the OSI-approved-license-conflicting project. it should be made absolutely clear, because it isn't made explicitly clear above, that one of the conditions is most definitely NOT that i must be made a member of the SSF board. all of these conditions are open to negotiation. if you grok the concept i'm trying to put across, and can think of some better way to achieve it, i'm all ears. good grief. over three hours later. anyway. as is probably abundantly clear by now, this isn't about me (as i have often been accused of in the past, which hasn't been the case for quite some time now). this is about moving forward, and ensuring a framework in which progress can be made. i'm fed up with the arbitrary way in which critical open source projects aren't, if you look at it critically, really making any _significant_ progress in _significant_ leaps or bounds to further _real_ business needs and problems, at a time when windows is moving inexorably further up its own behind, and people are just ... lapping it up because they don't BELIEVE they have any CHOICE [or they actually don't: e.g. where is the Open Source Passport clone for Mono to use?]. windows is getting more insidious, providing more and more "features" enabled by default that hackers can count on being available on 90 to 95% of all computers in homes and businesses today. my favourite virus which, should it become a reality i almost certainly literally _will_ fall on the floor with laughter about, will be when "Longhorn" gets - as a standard component that is activated all the time - the long-awaited clued-up and mega-fast document "search" capability. and a convenient Win32 and .NET API for virus writers to use it. industrial espionage made easy. "build your own virus" kit, available from lithuania for only $99 euros [dollar having fallen through the floor due to too much unexplained IP leakage to russia, china, iraq, india and the far east.] download a free demo _NOW_ from smb://295.128.53.29... l. -- -- <a href="http://lkcl.net">http://lkcl.net</a> --
On Wed, 2004-12-15 at 15:18 -0600, Gerald (Jerry) Carter wrote:> However, given that Luke is no longer a developer > on Samba, it is off-topic for him to propose a > organizational change to a OSS project with which > he is no longer associated.--- without even mentioning that this is a topic for the samba-devel mail list and not the users list. The post puzzled me as to the motivations of taking it to the users like me that are grateful for the fish and would steer clear of any politics. Craig
> > Yes it realy sounds wonderful, and the basic idea probably is, but I > dislike the reiteration of personal tastes, and dislikes. > Imposing "if xy would say something negative about me I'll take my ball > with me and won't play again with you until you would force him to > leave" IMHO sounds too childish in an OSS software organizations ruleset > :-( > > Cheers, > > Geza Gemes> > Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:I think the fact that the guy uses his full name says it all........ Regards, Sir Tiddlywinks Saturn Brigator Uranus Excelsior (yeh, I know it's childish but it made me laugh)
i like it. i like it a lot. sounds wonderful. lets get this going. the time is NOW to kill exchange. -charles http://www.thewybles.com/~charles www.oserproject.org Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:>dear samba users and developers, > >i'd like to put to you a proposal for your respectful >consideration: it is an idea that i believe has strategic >merit for the open source community and OS users as a whole. > >these words are chosen carefully and the reasons will become >apparent later: that i begin as an example. > >as you are no doubt aware, there have been some seriously >damaging (but not obviously so) decisions made for which the >parties involved, myself included, owe you quite a debt, >because the down-side of those decisions has led, in my >opinion, to significant delays in "opening windows to a >wider world". > >what i am proposing is the introduction of a "Samba Software >Foundation", which would be modelled on the well-known "Apache >Software Foundation"'s charter. > >to kick-start that process - to bring some incentive to carrying >it forward, what i propose to do is: if the SSF is set up in >line with the way i envisage here, i promise to assign all >samba-related code that i have ever written _to_ the SSF - >with some conditions that will be aimed at protecting YOU - >the samba community - not me, as i will point out later. > >now, as you are no doubt aware, i believe the ASF charter to >have the following key points: > > 1) that all contributors treat each other with mutual > respect. > > 2) that all code contributed is DUAL copyrighted > assigned: one copy is kept by the contributor, and > one identical copy is kept by the ASF > > 3) that acceptance of contributions are judged on TECHNICAL > merit. > > 4) voting and karma. > >note the contrast between 2) and what i propose to contribute, >above: namely that i will assign _all_ my samba-related code to a >newly formed SSF (without holding dual copyright myself). > >one of the key conditions on that happening as follows: >that 3) above, for the Samba Software Foundation, would need to be: > > 3) that acceptance of contributions are considered > for STRATEGIC as WELL as technical grounds. > >for example: > > if some code is dog-slow and therefore would normally > be rejected on technical grounds, if it opens up some > strategically important area, then despite its technical > abominability, it would STILL go ahead and be included. > > ... and probably given a high priority for optimisation > and/or replacement with a better solution, should > some poor sucker turn out to be actually using it and > suffering greatly, but having no other choice, they carry > on regardless. > >you get the idea, i am sure. > >now, here comes the difficult bit for me - namely that i >have to give you some reasons as to _why_ i am advocating the >introduction of an SSF, because i have to write about matters >that i have written about many times, initially because i was >very very hurt by what happened, later because i was concerned >that the things that happened to me would happen to other >people, and later _still_ because i was concerned that the samba >project, despite its progress in so many ways, has not, in my >opinion, progressed in any _really_ new or innovative areas >that make a significant difference to Open Source OS users. > >particularly business users who are still totally dependent on >windows environments to do day-to-day activities, in constant >fear of wrecking their career or business prospects not because >of something they did but because of something they _didn't_ >do and didn't _know_ could happen or didn't believe it would >happen to them, today - a virus or a spyware attack. > > >[you only have to look at the two or more open source exchange > projects which have been initiated on sf.net in the past four > years and have both stalled, and the fact that they are based on > samba tng not samba 3, to recognise that samba's usefulness is > seriously curtailed. > > and also the sf.net freedce project which has had DCOM > development environment support since 2000, but no integration > with NT security or _any_ version of samba, and so consequently > is completely useless.] > >so i am going to outline, under each of the headings above >(1, 2 and 3) what _has_ happened - briefly - and i think you >will see very clearly that if the SSF _had_ been in place, >history would be totally totally different. > > > 1) that all contributors treat each other with mutual respect. > > for the people who know their samba history, > it is an understatement for me to say that i > do not need to say _anything_ more on this one. > > 2) that all code contributed is DUAL copyrighted > assigned: one copy is kept by the contributor, and > one identical copy is kept by the ASF > > this one _does_ need some background explanation. > > i began working on samba's nt domain code > in august 1997 with paul ashton (mr "welcome > to the samba domain"). i was _delighted_ - > and a little scared. > > paul and i had begun to take a swing at > microsoft (nyer, nyer) and yet, strangely, > they were quietly encouraging. i found a > question the other day in the september 1997 > ntbugtraq archives from paul leach, asking if > we'd considered such-and-such a case. > > as the amount of exploration and coding > increased, my concentration on wholesale > cut-and-paste of previously written header files > and c files decreased - and the original files > i cut/paste from, even though they contained > no code contributions from andrew or jeremy: > due to a misunderstanding, i often included > their names at the top of the Copyright notices. > > 100,000 extra lines of code, spread across > over sixty or eightly extra source code files, > and over three years later, code that i had > written, a large number of which i own exclusive > copyright over, contained copyright notices > of people who had not contributed a single line. > > against this background, when as you know > things started to turn a bit nasty, at the > third CIFS conference andrew mistakenly said > "jeremy's code" in connection with my first > six months experimental work on the samba ntdom > project - code which saw first production usage > in samba 2.0 for the Domain Membership functionality > and _reeaaally_ basic PDC functionality, > amongst other things. > > as you can imagine, i was pissed. > > so pissed that, in about 2001 i conceived the > idea of "Disputing" copyright of the samba > source code - and in my opinion, with good > grounds, too. > > now, the consequences of _that_ would be > that all users of Samba source code would > need to cease and desist use and distribution > until the matter was resolved! > > due to a former case, as far as i am aware, > i am still registered with a US civil > department as one of the joint copyright > holders of samba's source code [it's a long > and completely different story where some > bastards tried to steal samba and sell it > for $USD 10k a shot to sun microsystems, and > the reason why none of the copyright holders > could claim compensation from the bastards was > because in order to make a copyright claim in > the U.S. you have to _register_ the product > and its copyright holders!! no other country > that respects copyright law requires this bloody > stupid registration] > > so you see now why i promise to assign all > copyright of all samba-related code i have > ever written to a Samba Software Foundation, > should it ever come into being in the form > that i outline here. > > the purpose of 2) is to protect the community > and the foundation from creating exactly these > kinds of purple nasties. > > [a purple nasty is what you get if you > mix a blue-coloured aniseed liqueur with > a red-coloured cream liqueur. the cream > happily curdles and also goes purple. sadly, > purple nasties are also undrinkable: i did try > because i didn't want an entire glass of 40% > cocktail to go to waste without knowing what > it tasted like. pfh.] > > 3) that acceptance of contributions are considered > for STRATEGIC as WELL as technical grounds. > > i've hinted at some examples in the form of > the two stalled exchange for unix projects and > the freedce project (all are on sf.net), but i > haven't given any details or justifications as > to why i believe 3) is really, REALLY important. > > this is going to be difficult: andrew, jeremy, > please bear with me while i work out how to > say this, and PLEASE, PLEASE think just as > carefully should you choose to reply. > > i'll start with things that i know, with > something that jeremy once said to me: i > believe that will help. > > jeremy once said to me, in 2000 - about march or > so - at one time when i was having particular > difficulties in communicating a number of > complex issues - that both he and andrew are not > managers, they're strongly technically minded. > > he also said that he, too, had difficulties > convincing andrew of key issues, and that > he had to stick to his guns and simply say, > "andrew, you're wrong". > > also, recently, andrew reiterated that he makes > decisions based on technical merit, and that the > standards set are being continuously raised. > > the trouble with that approach is that, > in combination with the level of technical > expertise required to even BEGIN to contribute > to the samba project, the standards that andrew > has set appear _extremely_ intimidating. > > it also leaves andrew in the unfortunate > position of having to make all the decisions, > and the bar _can_ be raised, and moved sideways, > and moved again... i'm sorry to have to raise > this, but you see what i am hinting at _could_ > happen, and, unfortunately, difficult as it is > to believe because andrew is so well respected, > there were times in 2000 where i felt that > the bar _was_ being moved sideways, upwards, > crossways and any way possible. > > to mitigate against the down-side of such high > expertise and standards and risks, something > has got to give, but also in such a way that > the quality of work that reaches production > environments is not adversely affected (except > where admins or developers actively CHOOSE to > deploy potentially foot-shooting code!) > > so, i believe i've laid out enough for people > to be able to draw the obvious conclusion: > namely that by allowing code contributions > based on "strategic" grounds, there at least > exists the possibility to add in experimental > or radically innovative work that suffers from > technical warts and down-right stupidity, > working happily alongside and often using > services and components that have been in > production use for nearly a decade, with > distribution measured in millions of units. > > 3) is about future-proofing, opening up > possibilities that would otherwise be closed - > and remain closed on "technical" grounds - and > it's about weighing and balancing ease-of-use > (for developers and users) against potential > "technical optimisation and innovation". > > a simple example that is easily understood is > that a potential coding optimisation which > is technically brilliant could be delayed > indefinitely under 3), due to the optimisation > somehow making life genuinely difficult for > new developers to _begin_ to understand how > to get their new project up-and-running using > the samba4 runtime developer environment, > as opposed to requiring a few weeks or even > months preparatory learning, should this > "brilliant" technical optimisation be added. > > > 4) voting and karma. > > i'm not _entirely_ sure exactly how ASF > karma works, but from empirical observation, > i believe voting to be involving project > developers sending a digitally signed +1, > 0 or -1, and karma to be involved with "who > breaks the automated builds on checkins". > > the thing is that both these things are > actually ingrained into the checkin scripts > of the source repository, with an automatic > link [cvs blame] back to the "karma" thing. > > i'm simply mentioning 4) for completeness but > i am not sufficiently clued up on its details > to be able to advise on it or advocate its use. > >so. > >as you can see, if a Samba Software Foundation _had_ been in place in >1996, the following things would almost certainly not have happened: > >1) my code checkins would had to have improved because my > karma would be absolute mud otherwise. > >2) i would have been able to propose the TNG named pipes architecture > for inclusion in samba 2.0, in order to open up a really important > strategic avenue - for: > > a) in 1999 / 2000, Sun Microsystems to be able to drop > the crap bits (the file server) of the AFPS code they > bought from AT & T for $USD N million, and use smbd > along with all the _working_ NT Domain services they > bought that didn't rely on anything to do with POSIX. > > b) the exchange for unix project to proceed using a > stable production environment samba - without any > code modifications. > > c) cliffs, samba 3, samba 4 and samba tng's services > to be able to progress and help bootstrap each other > in an accelerated manner > > d) other people wishing to get an introduction to > samba to be able to bite off a small self-contained > 30,000 line project instead of being intimidated by > 350,000 lines of GPL code > > e) FreeDCE and other MSRPC-compatible projects to > utilise the best components of all worlds. > > f) the Wine team to be able to hook in to the samba > project at some critical interface points _without_ > having to worry about licensing issues, instead of > having to consider writing their own non-GPL'd version > of smbd! > >3) it would have been impossible for me to swear in quite >so much frustration - not least because the reasons _why_ >i was getting so agitated would have been tempered, but also >because it demonstrates lack of respect, and that would, if >it had continued, resulted in me being banned from contributing. > >4) all my code contributions would have been dual-copyrighted >owned, just like everyone else, to the SSF, and the issue of >getting pissed off _at all_ at things like "this is jeremy's >code" simply would be moot [i would likely have said "oi!" and >left it at that] > >as you can clearly see, history would be radically, _radically_ >different had there been an SSF in place. > >now. > >there is one thing left for me to outline: it's the conditions >that i seek for the samba-related code i own to be assigned >to the SSF, should it be created. on careful consideration, >i believe that they make a lot of sense and the reasons why >i am proposing them are pretty abundantly obvious. > >1) the strategic thing. > >2) that if any SSF project developer even _thinks_ of breaking >the charter's conditions of the SSF (especially the one about >mutual respect), copyright of the code i assign AUTOMATICALLY >reverts unconditionally to dual-ownership (to me and to the SSF, >from being owned wholly by the SSF). > >3) if it's either andrew or jeremy who does the breaking >(privately, publicly or to _any_ third party), >then copyright AUTOMATICALLY reverts unconditionally to me >(i.e. _from_ being owned wholly by the SSF, _to_ being wholly >owned by _me_) > >4) if _i_ ever break the charter's conditions, 2) and 3) >AUTOMATICALLY become null and void conditions (but 6) remains >still in effect, always) > >5) condition 4) cannot become null or void at any time - ever. > not even if there's some stupid dickhead country, planet > or universe under which agreements and conditions like the > one's outlined here don't apply. > >6) if a full-blown bun-fight occurs, and both myself AND >either andrew or jeremy or both break the charter's conditions >(not necessarily at the same time), then on permanent and >irrevocable resignation of the party / parties that did the >breaking, the code will again become assigned ownership of the >SSF [and, obviously, lose it again if the breaker(s) is(are) >allowed to rejoin the SSF]. > >7) if another project has an OSI-approved license that happens >to be incompatible with the SSF's license, the board of the >SSF will, if it proves significant and relevant, give serious >consideration to licensing relevant parts of the code assigned >by me under an alternative OSI-approved that _is_ compatible >with that projects's license - _or_ - the developers associated >with SSF projects will give priority to writing code and >putting in place strategically designed interfaces that will >help accomodate the OSI-approved-license-conflicting project. > >it should be made absolutely clear, because it isn't made >explicitly clear above, that one of the conditions is most >definitely NOT that i must be made a member of the SSF board. > >all of these conditions are open to negotiation. > >if you grok the concept i'm trying to put across, and can >think of some better way to achieve it, i'm all ears. > > >good grief. over three hours later. > >anyway. > >as is probably abundantly clear by now, this isn't about me >(as i have often been accused of in the past, which hasn't been >the case for quite some time now). > >this is about moving forward, and ensuring a framework in >which progress can be made. > >i'm fed up with the arbitrary way in which critical open source >projects aren't, if you look at it critically, really making >any _significant_ progress in _significant_ leaps or bounds >to further _real_ business needs and problems, at a time when >windows is moving inexorably further up its own behind, and >people are just ... lapping it up because they don't BELIEVE >they have any CHOICE [or they actually don't: e.g. where is >the Open Source Passport clone for Mono to use?]. > >windows is getting more insidious, providing more and more >"features" enabled by default that hackers can count on >being available on 90 to 95% of all computers in homes and >businesses today. > >my favourite virus which, should it become a reality i almost >certainly literally _will_ fall on the floor with laughter >about, will be when "Longhorn" gets - as a standard component >that is activated all the time - the long-awaited clued-up >and mega-fast document "search" capability. > >and a convenient Win32 and .NET API for virus writers to use it. > >industrial espionage made easy. > >"build your own virus" kit, available from lithuania for only >$99 euros [dollar having fallen through the floor due to too >much unexplained IP leakage to russia, china, iraq, india and >the far east.] > >download a free demo _NOW_ from smb://295.128.53.29... > >l. > >-- >-- ><a href="http://lkcl.net">http://lkcl.net</a> >-- > >
I have great respect for the "Samba Team", for the hard work they put in and their success stories. As long as the decisions that are made technical or not are community focused, at the end of the day I would like an alternative to Windows (replace all those bl.... Windows servers) and have the freedom of Open Source software. Since you are part of a very sucessful project like SAMBA you are open to scrutiny but that is not a bad thing, depending on the approach you take. There are a lot of people out there that will support and respect you as long as you can demostrate that the right decisions are made. Thanks -----Original Message----- From: samba-bounces+ssimeonidis=computerpower.edu.au@lists.samba.org [mailto:samba-bounces+ssimeonidis=computerpower.edu.au@lists.samba.org] On Behalf Of Michael H. Warfield Sent: Thursday, 16 December 2004 9:00 AM To: Gerald (Jerry) Carter Cc: samba@lists.samba.org; samba-technical@lists.samba.org Subject: Re: [Samba] [proposal] Samba Software Foundation On Wed, Dec 15, 2004 at 03:18:48PM -0600, Gerald (Jerry) Carter wrote:> On Wed, 15 Dec 2004, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:> | dear samba users and developers, > | > | i'd like to put to you a proposal for your respectful > | consideration: it is an idea that i believe has > | strategic merit for the open source community and OS > | users as a whole.> The possibility of such a foundation to support and > promote the Samba community has been discussed and > considered in the past. I should point out however, > that by his own choice Luke Leighton is no longer an > active participant in the Samba development community.I have to agree here very strongly. No matter how you feel about his "proposal", it was presented in an inapproprioate maner and off topic for the list. As others have pointed out, this has been discussed in the past. The team decided otherwise. This would be something which the team should discuss and decide on. Instead, it was put forth as a unilateral proposal with no attempt toward discussion with the team itself, who, ultimately, must decide. I'm sure this was NOT the way the Apache Foundation was established. Not by blindsiding the entire active development team. It was a long and complex proposal that would take a LOT of discussion, not a simple presentation of "here it is" fait accomply...> Luke and others have created a fork, which is known as Samba-TNG > (http://www.samba-tng.org), of the Samba code in October, 2000. Our > stance has always been supportive of Luke and the Samba-TNG > developers. See> http://www.samba.org/samba/tng.html> However, given that Luke is no longer a developer > on Samba, it is off-topic for him to propose a > organizational change to a OSS project with which > he is no longer associated.> > cheers, jerry > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > Samba Team > Alleviating the pain of Windows(tm) ------- http://www.samba.org > GnuPG Key ----- http://www.plainjoe.org/gpg_public.asc > "If we're adding to the noise, turn off this song"--Switchfoot (2003)Regards, Mike -- Michael H. Warfield | (770) 985-6132 | mhw@WittsEnd.com /\/\|=mhw=|\/\/ | (678) 463-0932 | http://www.wittsend.com/mhw/ NIC whois: MHW9 | An optimist believes we live in the best of all PGP Key: 0xDF1DD471 | possible worlds. A pessimist is sure of it!
On Wed, Dec 15, 2004 at 03:18:48PM -0600, Gerald (Jerry) Carter wrote:> On Wed, 15 Dec 2004, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:> | dear samba users and developers, > | > | i'd like to put to you a proposal for your respectful > | consideration: it is an idea that i believe has > | strategic merit for the open source community and OS > | users as a whole.> The possibility of such a foundation to support and > promote the Samba community has been discussed and > considered in the past. I should point out however, > that by his own choice Luke Leighton is no longer an > active participant in the Samba development community.I have to agree here very strongly. No matter how you feel about his "proposal", it was presented in an inapproprioate maner and off topic for the list. As others have pointed out, this has been discussed in the past. The team decided otherwise. This would be something which the team should discuss and decide on. Instead, it was put forth as a unilateral proposal with no attempt toward discussion with the team itself, who, ultimately, must decide. I'm sure this was NOT the way the Apache Foundation was established. Not by blindsiding the entire active development team. It was a long and complex proposal that would take a LOT of discussion, not a simple presentation of "here it is" fait accomply...> Luke and others have created a fork, which is known as > Samba-TNG (http://www.samba-tng.org), of the Samba code > in October, 2000. Our stance has always been supportive > of Luke and the Samba-TNG developers. See> http://www.samba.org/samba/tng.html> However, given that Luke is no longer a developer > on Samba, it is off-topic for him to propose a > organizational change to a OSS project with which > he is no longer associated.> > cheers, jerry > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > Samba Team > Alleviating the pain of Windows(tm) ------- http://www.samba.org > GnuPG Key ----- http://www.plainjoe.org/gpg_public.asc > "If we're adding to the noise, turn off this song"--Switchfoot (2003)Regards, Mike -- Michael H. Warfield | (770) 985-6132 | mhw@WittsEnd.com /\/\|=mhw=|\/\/ | (678) 463-0932 | http://www.wittsend.com/mhw/ NIC whois: MHW9 | An optimist believes we live in the best of all PGP Key: 0xDF1DD471 | possible worlds. A pessimist is sure of it! -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 307 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.samba.org/archive/samba/attachments/20041215/5d742a9f/attachment-0002.bin
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Wed, 15 Dec 2004, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote: | dear samba users and developers, | | i'd like to put to you a proposal for your respectful | consideration: it is an idea that i believe has | strategic merit for the open source community and OS | users as a whole. The possibility of such a foundation to support and promote the Samba community has been discussed and considered in the past. I should point out however, that by his own choice Luke Leighton is no longer an active participant in the Samba development community. Luke and others have created a fork, which is known as Samba-TNG (http://www.samba-tng.org), of the Samba code in October, 2000. Our stance has always been supportive of Luke and the Samba-TNG developers. See http://www.samba.org/samba/tng.html However, given that Luke is no longer a developer on Samba, it is off-topic for him to propose a organizational change to a OSS project with which he is no longer associated. cheers, jerry - --------------------------------------------------------------------- Samba Team Alleviating the pain of Windows(tm) ------- http://www.samba.org GnuPG Key ----- http://www.plainjoe.org/gpg_public.asc "If we're adding to the noise, turn off this song"--Switchfoot (2003) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFBwKo4IR7qMdg1EfYRAjcIAKDs4Htd+GE1B7HgJ/1hKsx87fuKuwCgxTzX l7FVxIX6UihkskhrIdF2NYc=W+sG -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Skipped content of typemultipart/signed-------------- next part --------------> -- > To unsubscribe from this list go to the followingURL and read the> instructions: >https://lists.samba.org/mailman/listinfo/samba mike, hi, not entirely sure what happened here but the samba technical archives appear to be having difficulties displaying a message that i was able to access from someone else's browser, yesterday. from memory, if i recall correctly, you mentioned something about me giving samba a "fait accompli" - is that right? i'm so so sorry if i have the wrong end of the stick on this one and it wasn't you that said that. i really do have to point out that if you _did_ say that, it could not be further from the truth. as gerry rightly points out, i have no authority, and never did - as do none of us. all i can do is make suggestions: this _particular_ suggestion has an added incentive for it to be accepted - that _if_ it is accepted, the foundation receives lots of code. that's the carrot - putting it bluntly. the stick is that if the members that i assume would be there break the conditions of the charter - they lose what they were given. now, i've been thinking a bit more since i sent that message. on the basis that should the directors break the conditions of the charter, they'd likely get a bit more than a slapped wrist - on reflection, the "stick" conditions that i initially proposed _probably_ aren't even necessary. especially as these charters (e.g. the ASF's) are legally binding (usually in delaware :) .. what could be worse for [the proposed] SSF board members than to break the conditions of the charter that they are there to uphold? sincerely, l. ___________________________________________________________ Win a castle for NYE with your mates and Yahoo! Messenger http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com