From seanegan at gmail.com  Tue Dec 18 16:29:06 2007
From: seanegan at gmail.com (Sean Egan)
Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 13:29:06 -0800
Subject: Cross-project collaboration project
Message-ID: <e61d333f0712181329r1f9608bfi9814ed023e12ab@mail.gmail.com>

Youness Alaoui e-mailed devel at pidgin.im last week. He was looking for
support to start a project on freedesktop.org called OpenIM. This
would be a cross-team effort to communicate and document various IM
protocols and other related topics, like Adium's Message Styles,
currently supported by a bunch of clients, or standardizing smiley
themes and the sort. After some discussion, we decided that IM Freedom
would be a more appropriate organization to host this.

This would require little resources from IM Freedom, Inc. We would
host a wiki (or something similar) as http://imfreedom.org for us to
work on documentation. We'd also host a few more mailing lists (I
suspect oscar-devel@ msn-devel@, etc.). I don't see any of these
things having a significant impact on our resources. IM Freedom would
also take liability for all the documentation, to protect individual
contributors if we get accused of revealing trade secrets or
something.

I believe our rules say that all issues should be brought up for
debate on e-mail one week before a vote, so please discuss away.

-s.

From lschiere at pidgin.im  Tue Dec 18 16:35:04 2007
From: lschiere at pidgin.im (Luke Schierer)
Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 16:35:04 -0500
Subject: Cross-project collaboration project
In-Reply-To: <e61d333f0712181329r1f9608bfi9814ed023e12ab@mail.gmail.com>
References: <e61d333f0712181329r1f9608bfi9814ed023e12ab@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20071218213504.GL6480@pidgin.im>

On Tue, Dec 18, 2007 at 01:29:06PM -0800, Sean Egan wrote:
> Youness Alaoui e-mailed devel at pidgin.im last week. He was looking for
> support to start a project on freedesktop.org called OpenIM. This
> would be a cross-team effort to communicate and document various IM
> protocols and other related topics, like Adium's Message Styles,
> currently supported by a bunch of clients, or standardizing smiley
> themes and the sort. After some discussion, we decided that IM Freedom
> would be a more appropriate organization to host this.
> 
> This would require little resources from IM Freedom, Inc. We would
> host a wiki (or something similar) as http://imfreedom.org for us to
> work on documentation. We'd also host a few more mailing lists (I
> suspect oscar-devel@ msn-devel@, etc.). I don't see any of these
> things having a significant impact on our resources. IM Freedom would
> also take liability for all the documentation, to protect individual
> contributors if we get accused of revealing trade secrets or
> something.
> 
> I believe our rules say that all issues should be brought up for
> debate on e-mail one week before a vote, so please discuss away.
> 
> -s.

Since we (Daniel and Ethan mostly) solved the trac performance issues,
we have been doing well on our current hardware.  I see no issues in
adding another wiki and the additional mailing lists. 

Having the protocol development centralized to spread the cost in time
and effort across a larger number of developers is of course very
desirable.  I support this idea.

luke


From evan.s at dreskin.net  Tue Dec 18 16:42:34 2007
From: evan.s at dreskin.net (Evan Schoenberg)
Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 16:42:34 -0500
Subject: Cross-project collaboration project
Message-ID: <ED9A0A4D-B648-40B1-80EF-012E3C711743@dreskin.net>

On Dec 18, 2007, at 4:29 PM, "Sean Egan" <seanegan at gmail.com> wrote:

> IM Freedom would
> also take liability for all the documentation, to protect individual
> contributors if we get accused of revealing trade secrets or
> something.
>
> I believe our rules say that all issues should be brought up for
> debate on e-mail one week before a vote, so please discuss away.

I think it's a great idea and also a fantastic first imfreedom-as- 
imfreedom effort.

To maximize legal protection, I think we should ask that copyright for  
all protocol documentation and sample code be assigned to imfreedom...  
But IANAL. Sean, could you ask the lawyers if this is the right  
practice and, if so, if anything specific is involved in its execution?

-Evan

From seanegan at gmail.com  Tue Dec 18 17:08:47 2007
From: seanegan at gmail.com (Sean Egan)
Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 14:08:47 -0800
Subject: Cross-project collaboration project
In-Reply-To: <ED9A0A4D-B648-40B1-80EF-012E3C711743@dreskin.net>
References: <ED9A0A4D-B648-40B1-80EF-012E3C711743@dreskin.net>
Message-ID: <e61d333f0712181408x4a9ce99bp92a6f304b20baebd@mail.gmail.com>

On Dec 18, 2007 1:42 PM, Evan Schoenberg <evan.s at dreskin.net> wrote:
> To maximize legal protection, I think we should ask that copyright for
> all protocol documentation and sample code be assigned to imfreedom...
> But IANAL. Sean, could you ask the lawyers if this is the right
> practice and, if so, if anything specific is involved in its execution?

I've already put in the question.

-s.

From mark at kingant.net  Thu Dec 20 04:02:52 2007
From: mark at kingant.net (Mark Doliner)
Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 04:02:52 -0500
Subject: Cross-project collaboration project
In-Reply-To: <ED9A0A4D-B648-40B1-80EF-012E3C711743@dreskin.net>
References: <ED9A0A4D-B648-40B1-80EF-012E3C711743@dreskin.net>
Message-ID: <20071220085919.M31324@kingant.net>

On Tue, 18 Dec 2007 16:42:34 -0500, Evan Schoenberg wrote
> On Dec 18, 2007, at 4:29 PM, "Sean Egan" <seanegan at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > IM Freedom would
> > also take liability for all the documentation, to protect individual
> > contributors if we get accused of revealing trade secrets or
> > something.
> >
> > I believe our rules say that all issues should be brought up for
> > debate on e-mail one week before a vote, so please discuss away.
> 
> I think it's a great idea and also a fantastic first imfreedom-as- 
> imfreedom effort.
> 
> To maximize legal protection, I think we should ask that copyright 
> for  all protocol documentation and sample code be assigned to 
> imfreedom...  But IANAL. Sean, could you ask the lawyers if this is 
> the right  practice and, if so, if anything specific is involved in 
> its execution?

I'm totally in favor of this.  So Youness Alaoui supports this idea, too?  And
he intends to help get things started (initial set up, spreading the word
around, etc)?

-Mark

From elb at pidgin.im  Mon Dec 24 05:55:28 2007
From: elb at pidgin.im (Ethan Blanton)
Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 05:55:28 -0500
Subject: Cross-project collaboration project
In-Reply-To: <e61d333f0712181329r1f9608bfi9814ed023e12ab@mail.gmail.com>
References: <e61d333f0712181329r1f9608bfi9814ed023e12ab@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20071224105528.GA24301@elb.elitists.net>

Sean Egan spake unto us the following wisdom:
> Youness Alaoui e-mailed devel at pidgin.im last week. He was looking for
> support to start a project on freedesktop.org called OpenIM. This
> would be a cross-team effort to communicate and document various IM
> protocols and other related topics, like Adium's Message Styles,
> currently supported by a bunch of clients, or standardizing smiley
> themes and the sort. After some discussion, we decided that IM Freedom
> would be a more appropriate organization to host this.

I think this is a fantastic idea; early on we had discussed the
possibility that imfreedom.org could collect IM "standards" like fd.o
collects DE "standards" -- this seems like that idea, come again.  I
feel that it's a great way for IMF to "give" to the community in a way
that we can sustain and that won't step on toes.

> This would require little resources from IM Freedom, Inc. We would
> host a wiki (or something similar) as http://imfreedom.org for us to
> work on documentation. We'd also host a few more mailing lists (I
> suspect oscar-devel@ msn-devel@, etc.). I don't see any of these
> things having a significant impact on our resources. IM Freedom would
> also take liability for all the documentation, to protect individual
> contributors if we get accused of revealing trade secrets or
> something.
> 
> I believe our rules say that all issues should be brought up for
> debate on e-mail one week before a vote, so please discuss away.

I am presently out of the country, and my connectivity is spotty.  If
this should come to a vote while I am disconnected, I am in favor of
providing resources to such a project.  I realize that isn't a "vote"
per se, but just so you all know where I stand.  :-)

Ethan

-- 
The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws [that have no remedy
for evils].  They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor
determined to commit crimes.
		-- Cesare Beccaria, "On Crimes and Punishments", 1764
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From seanegan at gmail.com  Thu Dec 27 15:52:21 2007
From: seanegan at gmail.com (Sean Egan)
Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 12:52:21 -0800
Subject: Cross-project collaboration project
In-Reply-To: <e61d333f0712181408x4a9ce99bp92a6f304b20baebd@mail.gmail.com>
References: <ED9A0A4D-B648-40B1-80EF-012E3C711743@dreskin.net>
	<e61d333f0712181408x4a9ce99bp92a6f304b20baebd@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <e61d333f0712271252y176afcbci747644da4bc06a3f@mail.gmail.com>

On Dec 18, 2007 2:08 PM, Sean Egan <seanegan at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Dec 18, 2007 1:42 PM, Evan Schoenberg <evan.s at dreskin.net> wrote:
> > To maximize legal protection, I think we should ask that copyright for
> > all protocol documentation and sample code be assigned to imfreedom...
> > But IANAL. Sean, could you ask the lawyers if this is the right
> > practice and, if so, if anything specific is involved in its execution?
>
> I've already put in the question.

Sorry for the delayed reponse: holidays and all.

I spoke with a lawyer last week. The gist is that we shouldn't worry
too much about this. The chances of anyone trying to sue anyone over
this is pretty slim to begin with. If they *were* to sue someone,
they'd prefer to a faceless corporation over some hobbyist, even
without any formal relationship, or copyright assignment, or anything
like that. So, chances are you probably get de facto liability
protection just from having the corporate structure in place.

If someone's paranoid, we can easily formalize some agreement that
says that the work is being done specifically as part of IM Freedom,
rather than just using IM Freedom's resources. Pidgin developers, for
instance, get this automatically, as contributors to Pidgin are
considered volunteers for IM Freedom. We're willing to provide this
sort of protection (and non-profit status) to other projects that want
it.

Copyright assignment, which we'd previously brought up, turns out to
be mostly irrelevant as far as liability goes; it's only useful to
make it easier to maintain a progeny on the code and make it easier to
enforce license violations.

So, to sum it up, there's really nothing to worry about, but if you
are worried anyway, we can certainly help anyone out.

-s.

From nwalp at pidgin.im  Sat Dec 29 10:20:42 2007
From: nwalp at pidgin.im (Nathan Walp)
Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 10:20:42 -0500
Subject: hiatus
Message-ID: <477665CA.1010407@pidgin.im>

Hi all,

As some of you may have noticed, I haven't been around much.  The 
original cause was moving to a new state and starting a new job.  The 
current cause is loving that new job.  I'm having a blast, but it has 
definitely cut into the amount of time I have available to devote to 
Pidgin and libpurple.

So, I guess I'll make it official and declare myself to be on hiatus.  I 
say this mainly because the list of bugs assigned to me seems to grow by 
the day, and I'm just not going to get to them any time soon.  That 
isn't fair to everyone else, and I apologize as this email probably 
should have come sooner.

As far as my position on the board goes, luckily the time commitment 
there is relatively minor, as are the duties.  I'll happily remain on 
the board, unless there's consensus that I should do otherwise.

I'll still do some work on pidgin/libpurple, but I wouldn't expect too 
much from me.  Luckily, with several new developers and CPWs, 
development hasn't seemed to slow in my absence.  You guys have no idea 
how pleased I am about that.

Thanks all, and have a happy new year!

-Nathan

