On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 11:40:57PM -0400, Ron Teitelbaum wrote:
> > From: David T. Lewis
> > Sent: Monday, September 22, 2014 8:54 PM
> > 
> > On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 09:47:48PM +0100, Frank Shearar wrote:
> > > Actually, what process do we have in place to onboard new
> > > contributors? I know the old agreement is at
> > > http://netjam.org/squeak/SqueakDistributionAgreement.pdf - is that
> > > still the right document? To whom would the new contributor mail the
> > > signed agreement? It used to be Viewpoints, but now would it be
> > > someone in the SFC?
> > 
> > The signed contributor agreement was a part of the process of establishing
> > the current Squeak licensing. I signed one of them myself, as did everyone
> > else who was known to have contributed anything (large or small) to the
> > image up to that point.
> > 
> > Since the licensing was tidied up, we have all been able to proceed under
> > the current policies, which amount to making sure that all subsequent
> > contributions are provided under an MIT license. Every Squeak developer
> > with trunk commit rights has agreed to this, and we all work to the best
> of
> > our ability to ensure that both the letter and the spirit of this
> agreement
> > are faithfully preserved.
> > 
> > While it can sometimes seem annoying and silly, it in reality this is
> critically
> > important to preserve the integrity of the Squeak license. That is what
> > makes it possible for all of us to use Squeak for any personal or
> commercial
> > purpose without fear of legal problems, and it is what allows each of us
> to
> > contribute to Squeak without fear that our work will later be lost to some
> > silly legal dispute.
> > 
> > To me it is a privilege to be able to be a part of the Squeak community,
> and
> > it is worth a little bit of annoying license checking to ensure that we
> will all
> > be able to continue doing so in the years to come.
> > 
> > Dave
> > 
> 
> Someone please correct me if I'm wrong here (IANAL) my understanding was
> that those agreements were only necessary to relicense the code to MIT.
> Once it was relicensed it was important to tell contributors that their
> contributions were MIT (for example explicitly on a code repository and in
> other places that explain the licensing).  I did not believe that signed
> agreements continued to be necessary going forward in that environment.  Of
> course someone could release code into inbox  or mantis or somewhere else
> with a statement that the code has a different license and it would be
> important that anyone integrating that code reject the contribution, (or if
> anyone sees such a notice to report it so that it can be removed).  But the
> short of it is that all code from the relicensing going forward is MIT, all
> places where contributions can be made should be clearly labeled with the
> license so that it is clear that anyone contributing code is doing so and is
> only allowed to do so under the same license.  
> 
> All the best,
> 
> Ron Teitelbaum 
> 

Yes, that's right.

Dave