We have talked a little about IP clearance on the NuttX podling project
but I am not sure if anyone really appreciates the magnitude of this
effort: There is 13 years of commits, possibly 50,000 total commits,
many hundreds of contributors, 1000's of files, 1.5 million lines of
code, and transitions through 3 different configuration management
systems. There is no contact information for the majority of the
contributors and there is no reason to believe that all contributors
will be cooperative.
I think that anyone who believes that this can be done properly with the
part time, now-and-then effort of a couple of people is sorely
mistaken. I think it will require a fully dedicated, team with some
specialized expertise and a substantial amount of time to do.
The only way that I can conceive of this happening is if we were to
contract a 3rd party software CM/QA/IV&V house to to do the job. That
would, of course require a serious investment of money. I am wondering
if we could motivate some corporate sponsors to fund such an effort. I
appreciate that that is a long shot but we should consider it. In the
past, Xiaomi, for example, as committed to supporting the licensing/IP
clearance effort. But I don't think that anyone really appreciated the
effort required at that time.
We do have to make this happen and I don't blame anyone on the PPMC for
not wanting to take this on. It would cost you the next year of your
life .. full time. I wouldn't make that commitment and I would not
expect any other individual to do so either.
We some need a plan. With no plan, the project will not graduate. Even
with a plan in hand, I would not expect graduation to be possible within
the next year or more.
Greg
- IP Clearance Gregory Nutt
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