BSD port

[Kurt Miller]

On Tuesday 25 March 2008 1:12:20 pm Greg Lewis wrote:
> G'day Dalibor,
> 
> On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 04:58:28PM +0100, Dalibor Topic wrote:
> > On Fri, Mar 21, 2008 at 4:52 AM, Kurt Miller
> > <lists at intricatesoftware.com> wrote:
> > > Hi Carla,
> > >
> > >  I am very happy that Sun is embracing the idea of accepting our work
> > >  into the code base and I'm looking forward to that happening. I have been
> > >  working closely with Greg on this and will continue to help move the process
> > >  along on our end too.  Would it be possible to move forward with the BSD
> > >  porting project at the same time as the legal parts are worked out?
> > 
> > I think that depends on how long sorting out the legal process can be
> > expected to take.
> > If it takes much longer than a couple of weeks, then I'd prefer to see
> > the legalese
> > sorted out first, to avoid being stuck with a frustrating situation
> > where we're still working
> > out legalese and singing of documents, and the project is stuck on 'wait'.
> > 
> > Do you have an estimate of work that needs to be done on the BSD side (and
> > Carla on Sun's side) and respective timelines? From my reading of the
> > discussions
> > so far:
> > 
> > * Sun needs to draft a document for the BSD porters that have worked
> > under the JRL to sign (and the FreeBSD foundation)
> > * The BSD porters need to have a list of contributors that have worked
> > under the JRL
> > * The people and organizations on the list sign off the document
> > * The FreeBSD foundation's commercial license plays into this, as well.
> >    Scope of the problem (if it is one) and its resolution is not
> > entirely clear to me yet.
> > 
> > Is there anything I've missed?
> 
> That pretty much matches my understanding of what we need to do to resolve
> the licensing issues.  Then there is the actual port, but Kurt has been
> working on that already :).
> 
> I think this will take longer than a couple of weeks due to the involvement
> of legal counsel both for Sun (in drafting the document) and probably from
> the FreeBSD Foundation too (reviewing the document).  In each case I don't
> believe this is a top priority of the respective legal teams and will need
> some time to work through.  I'd be thrilled if Carla thinks otherwise from
> the Sun perspective, but I believe its realistic for it to take a couple of
> months rather than weeks to get through.
> 
> Its also difficult for me to estimate how long it will take to have people
> sign the documents too.  I imagine that will vary from person to person
> and will depend to some extent on how simple the document is to understand
> and how long it will take to get any necessary clarifications on what stuff
> means if its not.
> 

The vast majority of the JRL based work was performed by six individuals:

Kurt Miller <kurt at intricatesoftware.com>
Greg Lewis <glewis at eyesbeyond.com>
Jung-uk Kim <jkim at freebsd.org>
Christos Zoulas <christos at zoulas.com>
Arne H. Juul <arnej at pvv.ntnu.no>
Landon Fuller <landonf at bikemonkey.org>

There were three one-time bug fix submissions from other individuals and
13 changes that the FreeBSD Foundation has rights too.

Question for Carla:

Is it indeed necessary to come up with a new legal document for the JRL
work? Can't we just use the SCA for all the individual contributers? Provided
the six of us sign the SCA, it leaves a very small number of changes to deal with.

I guess I'm looking for a way to move forward with the project creation and
begin the process of reviewing the code and adjusting it to minimize the
engineering effort. If it will take months for Sun and the FreeBSD Foundation
to work out an acceptable agreement for those 13 changes, we can initially
leave the changes out so other important work can continue in parallel.

-Kurt