On 9/12/12 12:42 PM, "Chip Childers" <chip.child...@sungard.com> wrote:
>Hi all, > >(Looking for mentor guidance here as well please!) > >On this topic, we need to come together as a community to figure out >how we want to proceed with these configuration files. It doesn't >seem like we are going to get a definitive answer on legal-discuss@a.o >without asking about a specific file from a specific source. There >HAS been a little discussion about the ability of a configuration file >to be copyright on the legal list, but it didn't go much further than >a couple of emails. > >As far as I can tell, we have some options: > >1 - Do a file by file audit to confirm the source and if there is any >claim of copyright on those files, and then either: >1.A - Ask the source project if they would consider granting a >different license for just that config file. >1.B - Ask legal-discuss@a.o for specific exemptions >1.C - Do nothing, because the file isn't something that a copyright is >claimed on (and we wouldn't claim a copyright either) >1.D - Spec out the requirements, and have someone attempt a clean-room >implementation (I think that I could find someone if it gets to this) >2 - Follow up on the concept of configuration files not being >protected by copyright, and ask for a ruling from legal-discuss on >that idea. > >There may be other options that I'm missing. I'm looking for opinions >and suggestions for how to move forward, since this is absolutely one >of the blocker issues for a 4.0 release. Thoughts? > >-chip I am inclined to do 1.C. There are other OSS projects that contain configuration files: For example the HAProxy cookbook template for Chef [1] is very similar to the config file in CloudStack [2] [1] https://github.com/opscode-cookbooks/haproxy/blob/master/templates/default/ haproxy.cfg.erb [2] http://s.apache.org/8KI
