Re: [dpdk-moving] Minutes from "Moving DPDK to Linux Foundation" call, November 29th

[Francois Ozog <francois.ozog@linaro.org>]

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Hi Tim,

First, thank you for being so patient. As per LNG members, you have silicon
vendors, distro vendors, NEPs. I am sure you saw that not all NEPs are
contributing. Some may, some are not contributing code at all even if they
active in the community.

More importantly, contributing does not mean building and selling products
that include DPDK. DPDK can be/become a playground to learn about userland
network IO while products are built on derived proprietary technology.


Let's rephrase: I am not mandating a CLA, I just stress that intellectual
property and licensing aspects are better off handled at the bengining. As
per Mike Dolan, Apache 2 is also a good approach. I hope every contributor
have gone (or are going to go) through due dilligence about selling
products based on DPDK with its counsel.

When you say "Depending on their company's legal policy, that may slow down
or block contributions.": hopefully you don't think there is a need for
legal intervention for each contribution. right? there is just one CLA to
be established at the first contribution.
And I hope you don't mean that people don't go to legal because they know
they will block contributions so they keep low profile and contribute: that
would be a very bad corporate responsability behavior!


Cordially,

François-Frédéric



On 1 December 2016 at 22:33, O'Driscoll, Tim <tim.odriscoll@intel.com>
wrote:

>
> > From: Francois Ozog [mailto:francois.ozog@linaro.org]
> > Sent: Thursday, December 1, 2016 7:09 PM
> > To: Dave Neary <dneary@redhat.com>
> > Cc: O'Driscoll, Tim <tim.odriscoll@intel.com>; Michael Dolan <
> mdolan@linuxfoundation.org>; moving@dpdk.org
> > Subject: Re: [dpdk-moving] Minutes from "Moving DPDK to Linux
> Foundation" call, November 29th
> >
> > Hello,
> >
> > please find the Linaro CLA that passed many large companies lawyers for
> IP: http://opendataplane.org/contributor/individual/
> >
> > Compnies that already signed it (not all are listed): ARM, Broadcom,
> Canonical, Cavium, Cisco, Comcast, Ericsson, ENEA, Facebook, Hisilicon, HP
> Enterprise, Huawei, MontaVista, Nokia, NXP, Qualcomm, RedHat, Samsung,
> Socionext, Spreadtrum, ST microelectronics, Texas Instruments, Wind River,
> ZTE
> >
> > I wonder how to read "Need for a CLA is a problem for some contributors
> due to the need to get legal approval."
> >
> > Is it: "let's mask the problem to lawyers because they may NOT allow us
> to continue our technical fun?" or is it "this is just a burden that may
> take long and I don't want to lose time".
> >
>
> The concern that several people have expressed is that a CLA adds overhead
> for contributors to the project. If somebody wants to contribute, they
> would need to go through the extra step of getting the CLA reviewed and
> approved by their legal department. Depending on their company's legal
> policy, that may slow down or block contributions.
>
> Mike is correct that the legal details are better handled by lawyers, but
> before that it would be good to make sure we're clear on the problem you're
> trying to address. You said on Tuesday that some Linaro members would not
> be able to contribute to DPDK and/or use it in production without some form
> of patent protection. Looking at the list of LNG members, many of them are
> already significant contributors to DPDK, so that statement doesn't make
> sense to me. Can you perhaps clarify what exactly the problem you're trying
> to address is, just to make sure we all understand it properly?
>



-- 
[image: Linaro] <http://www.linaro.org/>
François-Frédéric Ozog | *Director Linaro Networking Group*
T: +33.67221.6485
francois.ozog@linaro.org | Skype: ffozog

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