[Spread-users] CVS access to Spread

[George Schlossnagle]

Hi,
I've been quiet so far, but I just want to chip in that I think it is 
pretty poor taste to greet people open sourcing a project with demands 
about how it should be done.  If you can't be patient enough to let the 
CNDS folks figure out how they want to grow into their newly 
open-sourced product then why don't you just fork it already and stop 
trying to micromanage other peoples work on this list.

George


On Wednesday, August 22, 2001, at 09:04 PM, Jon Stevens wrote:

> on 8/22/01 11:10 AM, "Theo Schlossnagle" <jesus at omniti.com> wrote:
>
>> First off, through prevalent, anonymous CVS access is not an required
>> part of OSS.
>
> Nope. However, I will assert that truly successful OSS projects with 
> lots of
> committers do have anonymous CVS access.
>
>>  The idea is "open" (Open Source Software).  The Spread
>> community is currently small enough and the project's core is
>> complicated enough that "open" CVS access should be perfectly 
>> acceptable.
>>
>> Open CVS access is just as good and it apparently gives the Spread
>> maintainers what they want (which is seeing who is using it -- readonly
>> or not).  My interpretation of the the announcement of CVS access 
>> didn't
>> say anything about restricting it to certain people.  It just said, 
>> mail
>> in for a password.  I understood it as "everyone who wants access gets
>> it."
>>
>> Personally, I don't like pserver.  I would never set up anonymous CVS 
>> in
>> that fashion if given the choice.  I _always_ try to set up CVS over 
>> ssh
>> only.
>
> I hear your preferences, however reality is that it is possible to setup
> anonymous :pserver: to point to a directory of symlinks. This provides
> security.
>
> Read:
>
> <http://cvs.apache.org/viewcvs.cgi/CVSROOT/README.txt?rev=1.4&content-type=
> t
> ext/vnd.viewcvs-markup>
>
>> As for creating an anonymous account with no password as a
>> readonly CVS user over ssh... Maybe that is a solution (and IMNSHO a
>> good one).
>
> What *exactly* does that gain you other than higher overhead for 
> everyone
> involved?
>
>> Are you familiar with copyright and licensing?
>
> Of course I am. I have been dealing with contributing to and managing 
> large
> scale OSS projects for the last 5+ years and in smaller amounts for 5 
> years
> before that (I used to port a lot of software to A/UX, including 
> X11R6v4)...
>
>>  You cannot merge
>> contributions into a project if they are inappropriately licensed and
>> copyrighted.  This the reason that the FSF has the painful assignment 
>> of
>> copyright rigamarole.  This, to most people, is annoying.  If instead
>> the maintainers require that contributions be licensed under a specific
>> compatible license (like BSD, MIT X11, etc.), then there are no issues.
>
> Simple solution (that the ASF employees):
>
> Contributions are required to be under the ASF License (in your case,
> Spread's License) and copyright to the ASF (in your case, the same 
> copyright
> that Spread is under).
>
> I just saw the other message from Yair confirming this...
>
>> Currently, there are no guidelines on the contributions to Spread.  I
>> believe what they are saying is that they are setting guidelines so 
>> that
>> there will be no legal problems accepting contributions.  Please don't
>> stand in their way.
>
> Where did you get that I'm standing in anyone's way or even trying to? I
> want things open. Nothing more, nothing less.
>
>>> That is because no one could use it commercially.
>>
>> I assume you meant that no one could use it commercially without
>> obtaining a license?
>
> Correct.
>
>> Ben gives many of us here at CNDS advice on a regular basis.  I 
>> consider
>> his advice invaluable as I am sure the Spread maintainers do too.  
>> There
>> are several other Open Source maintainers that we work with regularly
>> here, and we try to draw on all of the knowledge and attend to there
>> recommendations.
>
> Great. I also volunteer to provide guidance if you want it. I have a 
> lot of
> experience running OSS projects.
>
> -jon
>
>
>
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