[OPEN-ILS-DOCUMENTATION] ***SPAM*** Re: Equinox license to DIG

[Stephen Wills]

As many of you know, I spent a couple of years in a somewhat  
competitively vendor-like position with you Equinox boys.   Since them  
I am now working a real job in the private sector but retain such a  
love for libraries and the Evergreen project in particular that I  
talked my company into giving me some PTO to continue volunteering  
with the Balsam Consortium and the Evergreen Project.

Long story short, I'm glad to witness for you guys.  I appreciate the  
many contributions, suggestions and hand holding we have gotten from  
the Ladies and Gentlemen at Equinox.  This last is no exception.

Thanks Guys,
Stev3 Wills


On Dec 21, 2011, at 2:52 PM, Mike Rylander wrote:

> After lively discussion here on the mailing lists, on IRC, in ESI's
> offices, and with the Software Freedom Conservancy, it is clear that
> some in the community believe we have unintentionally created a
> potential barrier to DIG using our documentation for the good of the
> community at large. This was never our intent, and while that may not
> necessarily be the opinion of the greater community, neither did we
> have any intent to divide the Evergreen community in any way.
>
> From this point forward we will release all Equinox-produced
> documentation for new Evergreen features at the time that a Beta
> release including those features is made available by the community
> and announced on the general mailing list. This documentation will be
> released CC BY-SA. No future Equinox-produced Evergreen documentation
> will carry a CC BY-NC-SA license, and we are in the process of
> removing the -NC license from the documentation we've already
> published.  This decision is a reflection of our commitment to the
> Equinox Promise, in particular to maintaining transparency, and
> listening to and sharing with the community of which we are a part.
>
> http://blog.esilibrary.com/2009/09/16/the-equinox-promise/
>
> The feedback we received, in part, helped us come to this decision.
> We appreciate the open dialogue, and I hope this decision helps cement
> your faith in our commitment to the Evergreen community.
>
> The new licensing information will read as follows:
>
> Copyright: 2011 Equinox Software.
> Creative Commons License <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ 
> >
> This work by Equinox Software, Inc. is licensed under a Creative
> Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
> <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>.
>
> -- 
> Mike Rylander
>  | Director of Research and Development
>  | Equinox Software, Inc. / Your Library's Guide to Open Source
>  | phone:  1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457)
>  | email:  miker at esilibrary.com
>  | web:  http://www.esilibrary.com
>
>
> On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 12:01 PM, Mike Rylander  
> <mrylander at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Bradly,
>>
>> On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 2:49 PM, Bradley M. Kuhn
>> <bkuhn at sfconservancy.org> wrote:
>>> [ Note: I'm not a subscriber to
>>>  <open-ils-documentation at list.georgialibraries.org>, so please Cc
>>>  <evergreen at sfconservancy.org> and/or <bkuhn at sfconservancy.org> on
>>>  responses.  Also, it is probably useful to keep Conservancy's  
>>> General
>>>  Counsel, <tony at sfconservancy.org> included as well.  Thanks! ]
>>
>> Since in this email you were responding to the general points made so
>> far in this thread I'll start my response here, but if I jump around
>> to other emails I'll be sure to keep the full CC list there for you.
>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 11:24:20AM -0500, Jason Etheridge wrote:
>>>>> For a specific example, see the bottom of
>>>>> http://www.esilibrary.com/esi/docs/?p=3D771
>>>
>>> the bottom of that URL currently reads:
>>>>> Copyright: 2011 Equinox Software. Available for redistribution  
>>>>> with
>>>>> proper attribution under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 license.
>>>
>>>>> Note: The Documentation Interest Group (DIG) for the Evergreen
>>>>> Project is granted an overarching and exclusive CC BY-SA 3.0  
>>>>> license
>>>>> for any Evergreen feature set documentation posted herein. The CC
>>>>> BY-SA license is only applicable to DIG and only applies to
>>>>> documentation for Evergreen feature sets.
>>>
>>> Dan Scott wrote at 11:59 (EST):
>>>> Thanks, Jason; I'm going to CC this to the SFC to ask whether that
>>>
>>> Dan, thanks for bringing Conservancy into the discussion!  This is
>>> indeed something that we can help with (and should be involved with
>>> anyway, pursuant to the fiscal sponsorship agreement between  
>>> Evergreen
>>> and Conservancy).
>>>
>>
>> ESI certainly agrees that licensing of the work published by the
>> project falls under the purview of the Conservancy, but to be clear,
>> the licensing in question here is that of ESI copyrighted  
>> material.  I
>> know that's obvious, but I just want to make it clear that ESI has no
>> desire or intention to hold sway over how the greater community (of
>> which we, as individuals, are a part), and one of our main goals is  
>> to
>> make sure that the community, embodied by those participating in the
>> creation of Evergreen (in any capacity) and represented by the SFC,  
>> is
>> the group primarily served by our efforts, in both production and use
>> of material we create and release as OSS.
>>
>>>> My primary concern is that that "Documentation Interest Group (DIG)
>>>> for the Evergreen Project" might not have any status as a legal  
>>>> entity
>>>> and therefore a license granted to it might be meaningless.
>>> ...
>>>> Arguably, it's the SFC as the umbrella non-profit organization  
>>>> for the
>>>> Evergreen project that has legal standing, so it might be the case
>>>> that the exception needs to be granted to the SFC.
>>>
>>> Both these are important points, and I address them in (2) below.
>>> However, I believe my issue (0) below is the most salient one and I
>>> suggest that it be discussed first.
>>>
>>> Jason Etheridge wrote at 12:24 (EST):
>>>>> Granting a license isn't legal advice; it's granting a license.   
>>>>> And
>>>>> intent should matter.
>>>
>>> Licensor intent is indeed often considered by courts and others in
>>> interpreting a license.  However, given that we're discussing  
>>> this, I'd
>>> suggest we discuss the current license grant text, and perhaps  
>>> come to a
>>> mutually agreeable resolution on changes to it, rather than merely
>>> relying on the grant text as written.
>>>
>>> To that end, there are three issues that I'd like to raise here:
>>>
>>> 0. Could you perhaps tell us what Equinox seeks to accomplish by  
>>> issuing
>>>   separate CC-By-NC-SA and CC-By-SA licenses?
>>>
>>
>> We can, and I will to the extent that it bears on this discussion,  
>> but
>> I'm personally surprised that the "why do you want to do this" is  
>> more
>> important that the "in what way does this effect Evergreen",
>> particularly when we've gone out of our way to compromise, with Dan
>> specifically, by preemptively publishing the explicit license grant  
>> to
>> DIG, even after we made a simple request that someone ask us for the
>> grant.  This was one of the things discussed in IRC, was requested by
>> Dan; we agreed to it and immediately made it happen.
>>
>> Now for the "why", which has been discussed in general terms before,
>> but can be said more directly.
>>
>> Equinox is the largest service provider for Evergreen support,
>> training, hosting, and development.  Nearly everything we do is
>> released back to the community for free, including documentation,
>> development, arcane knowledge and expertise.  We don't have those
>> lovely (evil) proprietary software fees to fall back on.  We make out
>> living off of our services and we make our services off of our
>> intellectual property.  In the short term, generally 6 weeks+/- of a
>> new Evergreen release with new features, our documentation has very
>> real value to us.  We understand the feature sets for which we write
>> documentation more than anyone else because we wrote that code and
>> that documentation.  We have real business value to be gained from
>> that training revenue. We do, of course, realize that once the  
>> release
>> has been adopted by libraries and DIG has released their
>> documentation, this time sensitive value to us is significantly
>> reduced.
>>
>> Additionally, we also believe that there is value to the community by
>> keeping vendors with little or no Evergreen experience from taking
>> this documentation and selling Evergreen services to the community
>> without understanding that feature or that release.  This can hurt  
>> the
>> community as a whole when people have bad service experiences and  
>> then
>> go publicly complain about open source not being up to snuff.  It's
>> important to note that the group that frequents this mailing list may
>> be savvy in this regard, but there are a lot of people out there
>> looking at open source who don't know which vendors have legitimate
>> experience and which do not.
>>
>> Neither of these points are theoretical -- both have grounding in
>> reality -- but, as I said near the top of the previous thread on this
>> topic that Dan linked to, I will go no further than that in  
>> discussing
>> specifics.
>>
>> So, with all of that said, we do have another option if simply having
>> an CC-BY-NC-SA version of our documentation available to everyone in
>> the world, while the DIG, for the purpose of releasing
>> project-official documentation and through the SFC, has a CC-BY-SA,  
>> is
>> more than the community can stomach.  We can simply post our
>> documentation on our web site and leave it protected by copyright.
>> Then, either at regular intervals, or when asked for it, or at some
>> other triggering event, we release a CC-BY-SA licensed copy to DIG  
>> for
>> incorporation into the official project documentation.
>>
>> Would this be more preferable?  My answer, looking at it from the
>> perspective of freedom and finding an appropriate balance, is a
>> resounding "no", because the base documentation is then more tightly
>> controlled.  But, if the problem is primarily the hot-button issue of
>> NC, then perhaps it would be better.  I default to freedom, though,  
>> so
>> I'd rather use the more permissive license.
>>
>>>   Specifically, Jason wrote:
>>>   >> Equinox really does want DIG--as we all understand DIG--to use
>>>   >> this documentation without any strings other than CC-BY-SA.   
>>> But
>>>   >> Equinox also wants the NC license in place for anyone other  
>>> than
>>>   >> DIG who gets the material directly from the website (as  
>>> opposed to
>>>   >> getting it through DIG).
>>>
>>>   This confuses me, because I'm trying to figure out what Equinox's
>>>   enforcement plan is for the NC clause.  Suppose someone takes
>>>   distribution of the material from Equinox's website.  Either one  
>>> of
>>>   two things are true:
>>>       (a) it's the same material they could receive from the  
>>> Evergreen
>>>           project itself, under CC-By-SA, since DIG (see (2)  
>>> below) can
>>>           redistribute under CC-By-SA at will.
>>>
>>>       (b) the material differs slightly, and includes some  
>>> copyrighted
>>>           works that Equinox hasn't licensed to Evergreen.
>>>
>>>   Consider (a) first.  Suppose Equinox finds someone using the  
>>> material
>>>   commercially, and says: "Stop!  You don't have a license, that  
>>> stuff
>>>   was CC-By-NC-SA".  The answer from the would-be violator is  
>>> simple:
>>>   "Oh, we got our copy from Evergreen project, licensed to us as
>>>   CC-By-SA, so we can copy/modify/distribute it commercially".  I  
>>> don't
>>>   see what Equinox has actually accomplished in that scenario.
>>
>> The answer is (a).  But, again, the focus is on the "why", which I
>> hope I've clarified well enough above, but isn't really pertinent to
>> finding (or deciding, perhaps, that we have found) a solution that
>> works for everyone involved.
>>
>>>
>>>   >> If, however, the DIG can be the recipient of a license  
>>> exception, then
>>>   >> given that the DIG membership is consituted of anyone who adds
>>>   >> themselves to
>>>   >> http://www.evergreen-ils.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=evergreen-docs:digparticipants 
>>> ,
>>>   >> in theory anyone could add themselves to that list and apply  
>>> the
>>>   >> CC-BY-SA license.
>>>
>>
>> This is actually a quote from Dan, not Jason, setting up a straw-man
>> to show that one could get around the NC license if they just wanted
>> to stick it to ESI.
>>
>> However, Equinox hopes that DIG (and others) will respect the process
>> that it has previously established.  We expect DIG to continue to  
>> take
>> care in their documentation efforts, to vet all documentation (even
>> ours), test, fix errors, if necessary, and re-publish.  For example,
>> ESI has had urgent requests for documentation, which we've produced
>> and provided, that then went through vetting process that lasted
>> longer than it took for us to complete the documentation as DIG
>> participants worked to ensure that everything worked as described.
>>
>> We also understand that some in the community may urge DIG to simply
>> take the ESI documentation and immediately post it to the DIG web  
>> site
>> as is without due diligence simply to make Equinox's CC-BY-NC-SA  
>> moot.
>>  DIG can certainly do that if they, as a group, choose to do so.  We
>> would not and, in fact, could not, stop them.  But the motivation
>> there would be obvious -- or it would be a tacit acknowledgement that
>> ESI creates documentation without flaws, and that matches the voice
>> and style that the project wants for the official documentation.
>>
>>>
>>>   I hope Equinox can shed some light on their intentions with this
>>>   licensing structure.
>>>
>>> 1. It's contradictory to call CC-By-SA an "exclusive license".
>>>
>>>   [ This issue may be moot depending on what discussion of (0) above
>>>   yields. ]
>>>
>>>   The "Note: " text above says that the CC-By-SA license is  
>>> granted as
>>>   an "exclusive license".  This is a contradictory statement.  CC- 
>>> By-SA
>>>   is absolutely *not* an exclusive license, so calling it such just
>>>   confuses the matter.
>>>
>>
>> Equinox can grant a certain license exclusively to DIG (or DIG for  
>> the
>> EG project/SFC).  This is not unusual for one party to be given a
>> different license, meaning that license is given to one party while
>> the rest of the world abides by another.  I think the thing that is
>> confusing folks is that DIG gets a CC BY-SA license which allows them
>> to then re-package and re-distribute the documentation as CC BY-SA.
>> The exclusivity lies in who Equinox grants that privilege to, not in
>> the license itself.
>>
>>> 2. Licensing for Evergreen comes via Conservancy, not DIG.
>>>
>>>   [ This issue may be moot depending on what discussion of (0) above
>>>   yields. ]
>>>
>>>   While Conservancy interprets the intent of the existing license  
>>> text
>>>   above to mean that DIG -- and therefore by extension Evergreen  
>>> -- and
>>>   therefore by extension Conservancy itself -- is the ongoing  
>>> recipient
>>>   of the CC-By-SA license for any material with that "Note: "  
>>> attached,
>>>   Dan is correct that it's confusing to grant a special license to  
>>> an
>>>   entity that isn't a real legal entity.  Therefore, we'd suggest  
>>> that
>>>   if the text above is to be used, it should have the following  
>>> edits:
>>>      s/The Documentation Interest Group (DIG) for the Evergreen  
>>> Project/The Software Freedom Conservancy, Inc. (Conservancy), home  
>>> of the Evergreen Project/
>>>      s/DIG/Conservancy/g
>>
>>
>> We will happily change this to whatever the most appropriate wording
>> is.  How about this:
>>
>> Note: The The Software Freedom Conservancy, Inc. (Conservancy), home
>> of the Evergreen Project, is exclusively granted an overarching CC
>> BY-SA 3.0 license for any Evergreen feature set documentation posted
>> herein. The CC BY-SA license is only applicable to Conservancy and
>> only applies to documentation for Evergreen feature sets.
>>
>> -------------
>>
>> Thanks, Bradly, for your attention on this.  Our goal is simply to
>> find something that works well for everyone involved.  We feel like
>> we've done what's been asked of us, and we're happy to continue
>> working on this.
>>
>> Dan's voice is important, of course, and he advocates well for
>> software freedom, but please remember that ESI is for software  
>> freedom
>> as well.  I don't think anything in our past could be construed as
>> anti-freedom, and indeed we are attempting to provide the most  
>> freedom
>> possible within the bounds of what we see as reasonable in terms of
>> protecting ourselves and the community.
>>
>> One last note.  I see that DIG has already begun incorporating some  
>> of
>> our documentation, since this license discussion began, into the
>> official repository and I would be interested to hear the opinions
>> those working on the docs right now, as it seems that we may have de
>> facto already struck an appropriate balance.
>>
>> Again, thanks!
>>
>> --
>> Mike Rylander
>>  | Director of Research and Development
>>  | Equinox Software, Inc. / Your Library's Guide to Open Source
>>  | phone:  1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457)
>>  | email:  miker at esilibrary.com
>>  | web:  http://www.esilibrary.com
>