Qtopia-interest Archive, March 2007
[MOQP] What are the plans for the following bits of software
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Message 16 in thread
>> and in fact, every open source project I know
>> of does not have a completely open control system.. KDE only allows
>> write access only if you prove yourself first. Same thing with the
>> kernel trees. I fail to see the difference. There is always some hurdle
>> to get write access. With Trolltech, it's getting hired as an engineer.
>>
>
> can anyone apply - and still keep ownership of their own intellectual
> property?
>
>
Yes. It's the usual employment model. Anything developed on trolltech
time is trolltech's property, anything developed on your own time is
your own property. I remember this well, as it was something I
personally wanted to know about (having one or two projects that I
wanted to keep my own property separate from my trolltech work).
>> and, anyone can always send patches. This is how some very good
>> engineers got involved and hired at Trolltech - including my boss.
>>
>
> and did they give up all ownership of their intellectual property
> rights, to trolltech, in order for that to happen?
>
If you want the source to go into the trolltech tree, then yes the
rights to that source code have to be compatible to trolltech
relicensing it to fit the current business model. If however, you are
developing against the trolltech source tree, then you're GPL free to do
what you want (within the framework of the GPL). If that's not enough
then purchase a dev licence and sell your product and keep your code.
>
>
>
>>> the day i can apply for write-access to trolltech source repository is
>>> the day i go "hooray!" and start apologising for making a mess of one
>>> of your mailing lists.
>>>
>> You can! Trolltech is still hiring.
>>
>
> ... do i get to keep ownership of all my ideas, inventions, works and
> copyright?
>
> _that's_ the kicker. think it through.
>
See my answer above. If it's done outside company time, sure, they're
yours clear and free. If it's done on company time, then it's company
owned. It's pretty straightforward, and quite de rigueur.
> much respect,
>
> l.
>
> --
> lkcl.net - mad free software computer person, visionary and poet.
> --
>
> --
> To unsubscribe - send "unsubscribe" in the subject to qtopia-interest-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>
>
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Message 17 in thread
Luke:
Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:
>> and in fact, every open source project I know
>> of does not have a completely open control system.. KDE only allows
>> write access only if you prove yourself first. Same thing with the
>> kernel trees. I fail to see the difference. There is always some hurdle
>> to get write access. With Trolltech, it's getting hired as an engineer.
>>
>
> can anyone apply - and still keep ownership of their own intellectual
> property?
>
>
>> and, anyone can always send patches. This is how some very good
>> engineers got involved and hired at Trolltech - including my boss.
>>
>
> and did they give up all ownership of their intellectual property
> rights, to trolltech, in order for that to happen?
>
Let me get this straight.
You rant on for several posts about how Trolltech and others are only
"grudgingly" abiding by the terms of the GPL. As an example, you claim
that they're all making it less-than-convenient for you to muck around
in their code bases, by offering incomplete or nonexistent
documentation, and/or not offering you sight-unseen commit rights to
their code bases. And yet you seem to want them to respect YOUR
"intellectual property"?
Note that the Free Software Foundation itself does not recognize the
concept of "intellectual property", at least as the term is used by the
layperson. See http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/not-ipr.xhtml. I'll
also observe that to contribute to the GNU Project you must execute a
Copyright Assignment to the FSF first. Why? Because under USA (at
least) law, only a copyright holder can seek legal recourse for GPL
violations. Having a single copyright holder for all GNU source code
gives the FSF (a USA registered non-profit corporation) the authority to
do exactly that.
So even if you were to go to work for the FSF *itself*, you still
wouldn't be able to "keep ownership of [your] intellectual property" as
you seem to understand and/or want to define that concept. If you did,
it would ultimately be to the detriment of the GPL Project's copyright
as a whole.
But that probably doesn't concern you, because as far as I can tell
after re-reading this thread, you apparently don't think that the FSF is
"Free enough" to satisfy you. Mostly because you don't think they're
"engaging" you by preemptively offering you commit rights to their
source code repository, or by supplying you with complete documentation.
Finally, I don't know of ANY company that could legally (at least in the
USA) compel you to assign ALL of your "intellectual property" to them as
part of an employment contract. For it to be YOUR property in the first
place, the company could not have a legal interest in it and therefore
wouldn't ever be entitled to it (e.g. source code you created before
agreeing to their employment offer). One employed, however, the source
code you produce for that employer that relates to their products is
basically theirs, not yours, because you produced it as a work-for-hire
for them. So it's THEIR "intellectual property", not yours. (Note: I
don't like the term "intellectual property" either).
What you seem to want is for everybody to give you everything, and for
you to offer nothing in return. I think we've seen that model before...
Myself, I've never had any trouble following any of the 60M+ lines of
Linux source code that I've looked at, after investing the time and
effort to really dig in and understand it. I think you'll find
likewise, if you're willing to do the same. Nobody has the time, energy
or inclination to spoon-feed anyone, especially anyone with such a high
signal-to-noise ratio in their written correspondence on the topic. Oh,
and I'll note that the source code is in fact THE BEST documentation in
existence. Sit down with a copy of Rubini's Linux Device Drivers book,
if you disagree.
Step up and take a share of the responsibility. Or step aside.
b.g.
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Message 18 in thread
On Sat, 3 Mar 2007 07:29 am, Lorn Potter wrote:
> > where, also, is the wiki, where is the subversion repository,
> > and to whom can i apply to obtain write access _to_ that repository?
>
> Trolltech does not use subversion for its version control system, nor
> has Trolltech ever had open access to internal development. We do have
> ways for you to communicate, to give bug reports and even send in
> patches, if you wish. and of course, nothing is stopping you from taking
> the open source that we release and keeping for own set of fixes, etc.
I'm adding this one to my inventory of 'why we should move to git' arguments -
public trees without (as much) hassle.
--
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Message 19 in thread
Holger Freyther wrote:
> PS: Where to report such bugs to?
Tried task tracker?
http://www.trolltech.com/developer/task-tracker
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Message 20 in thread
Holger Freyther wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm delighted to see that Qtopia4.2.1 was released, this increases the
> trust that future versions will stay free. So thanks for that. There
> might be a packaging issue with the following subdirs:
>
>
>
> src/plugins/applets/batteryapplet
> src/plugins/applets/brightness
> src/plugins/applets/clipboardapplet
> src/plugins/applets/clockapplet
> src/plugins/applets/irreceiver
> src/plugins/applets/mountmon
> src/plugins/applets/netmonapplet
> src/plugins/applets/screensize
> src/plugins/applets/volumeapplet
>
> src/plugins/decorations/flat
> src/plugins/decorations/polished
>
> src/plugins/designer/wizard/
>
> src/plugins/fontfactories/
>
> src/plugins/imagecodecs/ota
> src/plugins/imagecodecs//notepad
> src/plugins/imagecodecs/wbmp
>
> src/plugins/inputmethods/fshandwriting
> src/plugins/inputmethods/handwriting
> src/plugins/inputmethods/unikeyboard
>
> src/plugins/styles/flat
> src/plugins/styles/fresh
> src/plugins/styles/themed
>
> src/plugins/textcodecs
>
>
> src/plugins/today/datebook
> src/plugins/today/email
> src/plugins/today/todo
These are code from Qtopia 2 that has not yet, nor will probably ever be
ported.
>
> These directories contain a project file but no source. Should the
> source be shipped, or should the dir not be created? If this is a
> packing bug I could write a small test app to test for such errors.
Thanks, but I will just inform the release manager about this.
>
> kind regards
> h.
>
> PS: Where to report such bugs to?
>
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> To unsubscribe - send "unsubscribe" in the subject to
> qtopia-interest-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>
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