OSGEO Terms of Service

Thu Feb 16 16:58:46 PST 2006

Hi Board,

I traded emails and (closed format!) drafts of the CollabNet terms of service today with CN's lawyer.  They have agreed to all of my changes.  The summary of the changes is:

- The terms of service will no longer be a mandatory click through upon registration.  Rather, they will be on a separate page that gets linked to from footer text on every site page.

- The terms of use are significantly shorter, with redundancies and overkill sections removed.  Obviously there is still a bunch of legalese in there, but I feel this is necessary to protect the foundation's interests, and besides CN insists on this as the bare minimum for providing their services.  Nevertheless, Arnulf will be glad to know that we've deleted references to "Acts of God" and the prohibition on users "providing instructions on how to assemble bombs and other weapons" (no, I'm afraid I am not kidding).

- I have separated the CN infrastructure license terms from the license terms governing the content on the site.  The content is either the software, which I have indicated is offered under the applicable OSI license, or other stuff like images, documentation, text, etc.  This content would be, unless otherwise indicated, offered under a Creative Commons free license.  This would be the default.  So, for example, if a project decided to use the GNU FDL for their documentation, this will work too, it just needs to be stated on that documentation.

- I added some language to protect the foundation from IP claims over materials submitted by users of the site.  That is, if you contribute stuff to the project by posting it to the OSGEO site, you grant the foundation a license to use that stuff in its projects.  This is really more of a backup since all committers will have to sign a contributor agreement.

Since Arnulf is so fond of Wikis, I've posted the revised Terms of Service there for your reading pleasure.  

http://www.fossgis.de/osgeo/index.php/OSGEO_Website_Terms_of_Service

If you want to see the diff, I'm afraid you'll have to look at the attached PDF (but hey, it was created with GNU Ghostscript 7.05 since I don't want to feed the Adobe $$ machine).

Daniel, there are some things in here that you and your team will need to implement on the technical side:  (i) eliminating the click through on registration; and (ii) we need to fix the Creative Commons language and link that you have on the current site.  Let's talk offline about the latter change as its more than I want to type in this already long email.

-Rich

-----Original Message-----
From: Arnulf Christl (CCGIS) [mailto:arnulf.christl at ccgis.de] 
Sent: Saturday, February 11, 2006 5:00 PM
To: Rich Steele
Cc: Chris Holmes; Daniel Brookshier; Gary Lang; Markus Neteler; "Frank Warmerdam \" <warmerdam at pobox.com>"@cut.autodesk.com
Subject: RE: OSGeo: Draft of press release

+1 for all of this Rich, this is good stuff, thanks. Lot of relief on my
side. In case I didn't say so before - you are the best egal guy I ever
met.
:-)

Should we not dispense with mailing each others directly? Which one of the
lists will reach all that are in this To and CC?

I really need to get some sleep now though.

Arnulf.

> I tried to sign up to the site and couldn't figure out where to do it
> either.  Then I followed the link emailed to me for changing the password
> and was able to register.  In this process, I was presented with terms of
> service as a required click-through.  The TOS are the cookie cutter
> CollabNet terms served up as a default.  Others have the same terms, for
> example:
> http://www.jxta.org/nonav/servlets/LegalNotices?type=TermsOfService
>
> Like ChrisH said, I think we can dispense with the click through for just
> participating in maillists, etc.  Most of the provisions in the TOS look
> to protect CollabNet's rights to their IP and the service they provide.
> I'll need to have a conversation with CollabNet's counsel to see if we can
> get these to be pared back and linked in footer text as opposed to being a
> mandatory click-through.
>
> That said, I do think we should have basic terms of use for the site --
> ones that hopefully don't make the toenails curl.  The TOS should explain
> that some content (i.e., software) is licensed under applicable open
> source licenses, the services are licensed by CollabNet, and remaining
> content is freely available under a Creative Commons license.  I don't
> think the fact that some other sites do not have adequate terms of service
> is a very compelling argument that we shouldn't do so.  One of the main
> points of the foundation was to provide some legal aircover for projects
> and participants.  So I am sympathetic to the original objection, but as
> the Germans say:  "Schütten wir das Kind nicht mit dem Bade aus."
>
> -Rich
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Chris Holmes [mailto:cholmes at openplans.org]
> Sent:	Sat 2/11/2006 1:20 PM
> To:	Daniel Brookshier
> Cc:	Arnulf Christl; Rich Steele; Gary Lang; Markus Neteler; Frank
> Warmerdam (External)
> Subject:	Re: OSGeo: Draft of press release
> Ok, the click through stuff makes sense for me for contributors for
> projects, that's the benefit of having the foundation, the secure IP.
>
> But having a click through just to subscribe to a few lists on
> collabnet?  To interact with the boards?  That kills the open source
> spirit.  The barriers to entry need to be as low as possible.  Signing
> up for an account should be an email address, and no default click
> through licenses.  Anonymous users should be able to do as much as we
> can possibly allow them.  This is why wikis work so well, it's super
> easy to contribute.  I strongly feel we should not have a default click
> through to just use the site, and it sounds like we have the option to
> turn it off on the collabnet software?  A privacy policy and terms of
> use are important, but lots of other websites seem to have absolutely no
> problem with just posting it throughout.  Wikipedia has a linked privacy
> policy and disclaimers on the bottom of every page.  I see no reason why
> that's not sufficient, why people who log-in need to do the click
> through.  For contributors to individual projects, sure, but not just to
> use the collabnet site.
>
> Also it needs to be a lot easier to 'join'.  The site still strikes me
> as a members only place, and I still can't find out where to sign in as
> a 'member'.  The only place you really need a link to the sign up page
> is the login page.  Something that says, 'if you don't have an account
> yet, get one here'.  This makes lots of sense, since when you try to do
> actions that aren't allowed by anyone it shoots you to the login page.
>
> Looking at jxta.org they seem to have all this set up.  I guess the
> software needs to be configured?
>
> Chris
>
> Daniel Brookshier wrote:
>> I am adding Rich Steel into this discussion. The click through is just a
>> standard one that comes pre-installed. It is up to the board to work
>> with
>> Rich and the community to create the terms of use, privacy policy and
>> stuff
>> like the contributor's agreement.
>>
>> Rich, can you address Arnulf¹s concerns?
>>
>> Daniel Brookshier
>> Community Manager
>> 214-207-6614
>>
>>
>> On Feb 11, 2006, at 3:51 AM, Arnulf Christl wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Daniel Brookshier wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>You should be subscribed. The links are at:
>>>>https://mail.osgeo.org/servlets/ProjectMailingListList
>>>>The page assumes you are logged in. To allow users to subscribe, I have
>>>>riddled several pages with subscribe links. The primary place to do
>>>> this
>>>>however is at:
>>>>https://www.osgeo.org/content/faq/mailing_lists.html
>>>>The page is almost identical to the original, but does not link to the
>>>> list
>>>>server subscribe page. I will be creating something similar, but in
>>>> this
>>>>page.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>I got lost trying to subscribe to the new lists - I did not find the
>>>>>corresponding subscription page. Am I too dumb or is it not yet set up
>>>>>correctly?
>>>>>
>>>
>>>Hey guys,
>>>I'm afraid I can't join. Yes, bang - yet another pain in the ass again,
>>> but
>>>this lick-trough license is a no-goer.
>>>
>>>I don't really care because I went through three lawsuit accusations
>>> unharmed
>>>because our great German law simply does not allow for this kind of
>>>click-through license but nonetheless it makes my toe nails curl.
>>>
>>>I thoroughly like this one though:
>>>
>>>+++
>>>Force Majeure
>>>
>>>Except with regard to the payment of money, no party shall be
>>> responsible for
>>>any delays caused by acts of God...
>>>+++
>>>
>>>OK, if you do not feel like harrassing God I might just agree and
>>> lick-through
>>>all right...
>>>
>>>Fun part aside, I really think that this might develop into a problem. I
>>>myself will tag along because I know that by heart you are good guys but
>>> this
>>>kind of agreement really sucks bad and might cause major ruffling. See -
>>> this
>>>is just very different to what our people are used to. We have this
>>> authored
>>>Wiki where you get an account if you request for one. If you don't
>>> behave you
>>>are blocked. That way spam robots do not have a chance either. Our
>>> current
>>>liability, waiver, force majerue, God and survival agreement is this:
>>>http://www.mapbender.org/index.php/Wiki_Governance
>>>
>>>You might also have a look at this one:
>>>http://www.mapbender.org/index.php/NPOV
>>>
>>>I am not going to bring this into the major dsiscussion list and once it
>>>should get started there I am going to be as loyal to your side as
>>> common
>>>sense permits and will try to sooth people. But maaan, is this really
>>>necessary?
>>>
>>>Most standard users will just not care, they do this kind of thing three
>>> times
>>>a day on their XP boxes, but hackers might feel severly different.
>>>
>>>Best, Arnulf.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> --
> Chris Holmes
> The Open Planning Project
> thoughts at: http://cholmes.wordpress.com
>
>
>

With best regards,
Arnulf Christl

--------------------------------
    arnulf.christl at ccgis.de
         www.ccgis.de
--------------------------------
CCGIS:  ++49 228 90826 0
Tel:    ++49 228 90826 23
Fax:    ++49 228 90826 11
GSM:    ++49 172 2958 004
--------------------------------
CCGIS GbR
Siemensstraße 8
53121 Bonn
GERMANY

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