Jonathan, (01)
I agree with your assessment of open source vs. GPL. The other thing
we'll need to get Boeing to release is any IP claims and patents. If
momentum ever builds for the system, it's very likely someone will
produce a new version from current technologies that runs on today's
platforms. It would be easy to argue that it's not a "derivative work"
from a GPL standpoint, even though most of documentation needed to
build a new version is integral to the system itself. It would be much
harder to work around IP issues unless Boeing addresses that too.
It would also have the positive effect of blunting IP claims of similar
systems that came after. (02)
Open IP is an even bigger issue for me open source, since good ideas
tend to be implemented many times, and implementations tend to
become commodities over time That's the real fallacy of both GPL
and proprietary licenses: the tendency to think that an implementation
is important. In the end, they both tend toward open source over time
as people produce new implementations to work around the license. (03)
I'll talk with John Toole on Wednesday afternoon and work through
a plan for approaching Lou Platt at Boeing. (04)
At 08:28 PM 2/13/2005, Jonathan Cheyer wrote:
>Ken Harrenstien wrote:
>>There is a way, but it's not as simple as you might like. You'd have
>>to run DUMPER and give it a selected list of directories; you can then
>>take the resulting virtual tape file and "mount" it on another system
>>for restoration. The pain comes from having to decide which dirs to
>>save. There are enough of them that what I suggest is to start with
>>full disk images and delete what you don't want to keep -- the
>>clone/prune approach. Then, to increase portability and eliminate the
>>problem of disk blocks that were part of deleted files but still
>>present in the image, I suggest running DUMPER with a full wild-card
>>specification (<*>*.*.*) for each structure. The resulting "tape"
>>will be clean and the contents can then be restored to different
>>structures, or into a Unix filesystem for easier perusal.
>
>Yes, that does sound like it will be quite a bit of work and require
>someone who is intimately familiar with the filesystem. It would also
>require someone that Doug is comfortable with to carefully prune any
>personal data without invading his privacy.
>
>
>>I don't know about the "public domain" part. Why not use something
>>like the GPL to guarantee that any derivatives remain free? This
>>could also reassure the license owners that you aren't secretly
>>planning to make a bundle of money off something they overlooked.
>
>I am a fan of GPL, and it is my license of choice for my own software
>projects. However, I think that public domain is the right choice for
>NLS for the following reasons:
>
>* Simplest path for Boeing. No license is needed. They only need issue an
>official statement saying that they agree to release NLS/Augment into the
>public domain. Alternatively, organizations such as the CreativeCommons
>make it easy to do as well.
>http://creativecommons.org/license/publicdomain-2?lang=en
>
>* Avoid the Free Software vs. Open Source debates that will inevitably
>ensue. There are people on both sides who actively refuse to use software
>that is licensed with the "other" kind of license. I'd like to see people
>from both camps showing interest in NLS if it were to become available for
>the public at large someday. Political and philosophical differences hurt
>collaboration, and they have a way of rearing their ugly head despite
>one's best intentions. I'd just prefer that the license debate will not be
>one of the reasons that stops people from using NLS and developing new
>systems based on it.
>
>* Distract the Boeing Legal department from thinking about licenses at
>all. Once they start thinking of licenses, they are more likely to devise
>a hand-crafted license that gives us some kind of "hobbyist" or
>"historical" license that only allows read-only access to the code. While
>that is fine from a purely historical point of view, it would be a
>complete disaster from a collaborative point of view, if NLS were kept
>locked up as a copyrighted system.
>
>* Public domain gives widest possible future for the ideas and code
>contained within NLS. I believe that this to be in the spirit of what Doug
>would want (we can ask him to find out if he agrees with me :-), and is
>also in the spirit of open collaboration. NLS is an important enough work
>that it should be "owned" and cared for by society.
>
>
>
>That said, those are my own personal views on the licensing issue. We
>should definitely continue the discussion on this, with all involved in
>the project. We should come to an agreement within the team on which
>approach we will go with on this project. However, regardless of what end
>up agreeing on, it is ultimately up to Boeing to do the right thing. All
>we can do is make a team decision on what should be done, and then try to
>lead Boeing to come to the same conclusion.
>
>I believe that Doug doesn't feel that NLS is even close to being
>"finished", and part of my goal in this project is help to make NLS
>available to society for a) historical, b) educational, and c)
>inspirational reasons. Doug's papers over the years have been very
>interesting, but some people (i.e. software people) learn best by reading
>actual code, playing around with real working systems, modifying that
>system with their own code, and iterating the process. If enough people
>can understand what has already been done (by using the existing system),
>then maybe more people will be able to help Doug get to where he really
>would like the system to be.
>
>If we can get that to happen, then IMO this will have been a successful
>project.
>
>Jonathan (05)
Philip Gust
Nouveau Systems, Inc. (06)
phone: +1 650 961-7992
fax: +1 508 526-8142 (07)
mailto: gust@NouveauSystems.com (08)
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