[Koha] Restarting the Koha copyright license ballot upgrade process

[Thomas Dukleth]

Upgrading the copyright license for Koha 3.4 is being considered for a
ballot.  Koha 3.4 is currently under development.  The question would not
affect Koha 3.2, the current stable version, nor any previous version. 
Work on the ballot process is linked from
http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Koha_copyright_license .

The ballot process was discussed at a special #koha IRC meeting,
http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Koha_Copyright_License_Upgrade_Ballot_IRC_Meeting_-_13_July_2010
, and then delayed by some availability problems of principle advocates on
both sides but mostly my own  lack of availability to advance the agenda. 
At subsequent general Koha IRC meetings, the mailing list had been
selected as the appropriate initial forum to restart the agenda.  A
further delay was needed while issues relating to a conflict over
potential significant feature regressions from some major development work
and attention to RFCs were being addressed following KohaCon 2010.


ELEMENTS NEEDED FOR GOING FORWARD.

[There are some sequential aspects to the following list but it should not
be interpreted as necessarily sequential.]


1.  PEOPLE.

General availability of people interested in going forward at a
rescheduled date is needed for the ballot process to go forward.


2.  SUMMARY OF COPYRIGHT LICENSE NEATNESS TASKS AND PROCEDURES.

A page needs to be created in the wiki summarising what needs to be done
for improving how Koha manages copyright licenses for all cases based on
recommendations given by Aaron Williamson at the Software Freedom Law
Center.  Koha's management of copyright license issues has been much
better than most free software projects but neatness is especially useful
for both legal and coding issues.


3.  WAY FORWARD FOR OPENNCIP / OPEN SIP 2 CODE.

The difficulty of possibly GPL 2 only code for OpenNCIP / Open SIP 2
support derived from work for Georgia PINES added to Koha with no
copyright license headers needs to be addressed.  Anyone with good
contacts to the appropriate parties for resolving the confusion over the
Georgia PINES copyright license invocation, such as the Georgia Public
Library Service administration and programmers, such as David Fiander, who
worked on the code should make themselves known.  A close examination of
the Georgia PINES code repository by lawyers at the Software Freedom Law
Center might also reveal that the operating license invocation is actually
GPL 2 with an or later version option.  Separating the code from Koha
might be possible as Joe Atzburger identifies is the case for Evergreen. 
Rewriting the feature would be a less desirable alternative and may not be
feasible to schedule during the remainder of the time for Koha 3.4
development.  Dropping support for the feature would be wrong unless it is
reported too buggy or incomplete to be actually used by anyone in
production.

In the awkwardly named thread "Proposal To Switch Koha's License to GPLv3
and AGPLv3 or AGPLv3", Dan Scott wrote the following,
http://lists.katipo.co.nz/pipermail/koha/2010-June/024200.html .

[Remainder of this message continues after the quotations.]

On Wed, June 9, 2010 02:06, Dan Scott wrote:

[...]

>> Code for OpenNCIP / Open SIP 2

[...]

> I'm copying David Fiander, the author of the vast majority of the
> OpenNCIP code, to ask if he was directed specifically to place the
> code under the GPL v2 without the "or later" clause. I suspect that
> the omission of the "or later" clause might be a mistake, as I'm sure
> GPLS would have intended the OpenNCIP / Open SIP 2 to be "GPL v2 or
> later" to match the rest of the GPLS-originated code in Evergreen. The
> root COPYING license for Evergreen, committed 2006-01-30, uses the "or
> later" clause - http://svn.open-ils.org/trac/ILS/browser/trunk/COPYING
> - so I'm crossing my fingers that this is just an easily-corrected
> mistake.

[...]

See also Joe Atzberger's earlier comments in the "SIP2/OpenNCIP
development (was AGPLv3 discussion)" thread replying to Galen Charlton,
http://lists.katipo.co.nz/pipermail/koha/2010-May/023882.html and David
Schuster, http://lists.katipo.co.nz/pipermail/koha/2010-May/023904.html .

On Wed, May 12, 2010 17:56, Joe Atzberger wrote:
> On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 8:53 AM, David Schuster <dschust1 at tx.rr.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> So is someone going to take this to Georgia Public Library Service and
>> ask
>> permission?
>>
>> Seems like this would be a GREAT opportunity and Evergreen/Equinox
>> already
>> has a relationship with them it should be an Evergreen group making the
>> request with Support from the Koha Community?
>>
>
> There are no license issues from the EG point of view, because the code is
> not distributed as part of EG.  So any relicense requests should probably
> still originate from Koha, covering at least the reimplementation
> currently
> distributed as part of Koha, and preferably the whole project codebase.

[...]


4.  VOTING METHOD.

M J Ray had suggested using some method for voting to consensus which
would allow revoting.  He needs to provide some details for how that would
work along with a method of vote counting which maximises preferences.

On the issue of preferential voting generally, see the Wikipedia
preferential voting article,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preference_voting .


5.  BALLOT DESIGN.

The ballot design needs to be discussed on the mailing list.


6.  AGREE RESCHEDULED DATES AND OTHER OPTIONS.

Resheduled dates and other options discussed on the mailing list should be
formally agreed at #koha IRC meetings well announced in advance of the
meetings.


7.  BEGIN FORMAL PROCESS.

Once rescheduled dates have been agreed and announced, the ballot process
can proceed according to the agreed schedule.


8.  PUBLICITY.

The ballot process should be widely publicised to encourage wide
participation by the Koha community.


9.  ADVOCACY.

People should continue to advocate for their preferred choice.


9.1.  BALLOT OPTION ADVOCACY SUMMARIES.

Ballot option advocacy summaries need to be created.  There are links from
the Koha copyright license page in the wiki,
http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Koha_copyright_license , to advocacy
summaries.  Advocacy summaries for the options of GPL 3, invoked with an
or later version option, and AGPL 3, invoked with an or later version
option both have content but may need improvement.  Advocacy summaries for
retaining GPL 2, invoked with an or later version option, needs content.


9.2.  NEGLECTED POST.

I need to post a message from Aaron Williamson answering how copyright
holders can protect the rights of users beyond the terms of the license. 
I received that reply when my client computer was broken and did not have
the opportunity to notice its arrival and then I later neglected to post
it following my discovery of the message.


Thomas Dukleth
Agogme
109 E 9th Street, 3D
New York, NY  10003
USA
http://www.agogme.com
+1 212-674-3783