[Fiware-technical-committee] Final report on FIWARE Note for GPLv3/AGPLv3 components plus poll on decision to include note in headers

[Juanjo Hierro]

Dear all,

   As you know, we hired the services of the legal firm Across Legal/Id 
law partners to assess validity of the FIWARE Note 
<https://fiware-requirements.readthedocs.io/en/latest/GE_Requirements/#licensing-and-ipr-management-requirements> 
which has to be added to the license for any FIWARE component that is 
distributed under a strong copyleft license (typically in our case, 
GPLv3 or AGPLv3).

   Please find enclosed their final report both detailed (Memo_Across 
Legal_FIWARE_2020_final.pdf) and as executive summary (FIWARE Opinion 
Summary_final.pdf).

   As you will find the note is considered valid and it provides enough 
certainty to users of FIWARE so they don't have to release the software 
of their applications as open source if they merely use those FIWARE 
components.

   There is a question which has to do with whether the FIWARE Note 
should be included in the headers of files of the source code or whether 
it is fine just to keep it as a note under the license section on the 
GitHub repo of the component (which is the current MUST requirement).   
In this respect, you will find in the legal report that:

  * If the Note is considered merely an interpretative statement, then
    downstream licensees of the code who make and distribute a
    derivative work of the FIWARE component in question may remove this
    statement for its own code.
  * If it is considered as a term of the license, then downstream
    licensees of the code who make and distribute a derivative work of
    the FIWARE component in question cannot remove this statement for
    its own code.

   Therefore, if we want to avoid that downstream licensees modifying 
the code drop the note, it is advisable to add the Note in the headers 
of source code.

   However, we have to agree whether such requirement would be a MAY, 
SHOULD or MUST requirement and, in the later case, what could be the 
transition period we would give to GE owners.

   I have created a google form 
<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeWVG3-QthupuVFZ0zMv0t9Y_D1CuwofbCphF5ZP70q2wMrhg/viewform?usp=sf_link> 
for casting votes from the FIWARE TSC members who have to actually make 
a decision.  Options will be:

 1. This requirement will be only a MAY requirement
 2. This requirement will become a MUST requirement after a period of 6
    months, in the interim will be listed as MAY requirement.
 3. This requirement will become a SHOULD requirement after a period of
    6 months, in the interim will be listed as MAY requirement.

   FIWARE GE owner representatives are welcome to comment on the matter 
in response to this mail despite final decision will be based on TSC 
members decision.

   Please cast your vote before the TSC this coming Monday, because we 
want to come with a final decision.

   Cheers,

Document
Juanjo Hierro
Chief Technology Officer
juanjose.hierro at fiware.org <mailto:juanjose.hierro at fiware.org>
www.linkedin.com/in/jhierro <https://www.linkedin.com/in/jhierro>
Twitter: @fiware <https://twitter.com/fiware> @JuanjoHierro 
<https://twitter.com/JuanjoHierro>










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