** http://www.linuxtag.org/2011/en/program/free-conference/all-speakers/details.html?talkid=621 **
Hi,
some of the people within the various Linux distributions have been in contact with the aim of trying to improve collaboration on some issues of software licensing - an area which hasn't seen much collaboration up to now.
Whereas it can be understood that each distribution will make certain decisions relating to choice of 'good' and 'bad' licenses and the interpretation of those licenses and how those licenses interact with other licenses, there is certainly scope for collaboration in other areas.
For example, the discussions on the SPDX mailing list combined with cross distribution collaboration in another area (http://distributions.freedesktop.org/wiki/AppStream) encouraged us to see if we could e.g. agree on short names for licenses (GPLv2, GPLv2+, LGPLv2.1+ etc). This may sound quite trivial but it is a substantial step forward, particularly for downstream users of the distributions.
The "Cross Distribution Licensing Summit" on Wednesday May 11th 2011 10:00 - 13:00 is intended to have a workshop type character. We'll propose a loose program to keep discussions on track but hope that the proposed discursive nature of the meeting will lead to more concrete understanding of current practises of the various distributions and where we can collaborate.
I hope that the discussion will also be interesting to industry members in general, as well as to those with interest in SPDX. Therefore, if you are in Berlin/at LinuxTag on the 2011-05-11, why not drop in to Messehalle Regensburg between 10:00 and 13:00 and get involved in the discussions! If you're interested, I'd appreciate if you could send me a quick mail (cfarrell@...) just so I can get an idea of numbers/what distributions/what companies etc.
** http://www.linuxtag.org/2011/en/program/free-conference/all-speakers/details.html?talkid=621 **
Above is the official URL of the workshop - please don't be put off by its "presentation" appearance - as mentioned above we will possibly showcase some technologies used by the various distributions already to help with licensing, but it is not intended to be a three hour presentation.
Ciaran
--
Ciaran Farrell __o
cfarrell@... _`\<,_
Phone: +49 (0)911 74053 262 (_)/ (_)
SUSE Linux Products GmbH,
GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg)
Maxfeldstrasse 5, 90409, Nuremberg, Germany
/ˈkiː.ræn/
