RE: [cmis] Reference Implementation Considerations

["Dennis E. Hamilton" <dennis.hamilton@acm.org>]

David,

1.  I think maybe a birds-of-a-feather on reference implementations might be
useful at the F2F, although it is not clear to me that a reference
implementation should be developed as work of the CMIS TC.  

2.  With regard to licenses, I have no trouble with the Apache license,
especially because, like the usual BSD license, it is compatible with
commercial, closed-source usage without reciprocity and with the GPL. 

3.  With regard to internet-friendly places for hosting the code and its
development, SourceForge is agnostic to license choice and does not have a
complex procedure for establishment of a project, governance, and
development of committers.  The additional formalities with regard to
contributions under a particular license are generally the responsibility of
the individual project.

4.  If the conditions for creating an Apache Foundation project were
satisfied, and the Foundation found a CMIS reference implementation to be a
suitable project, that seems all right to me as well, so long as the
barriers to participation are minimal and the IP question around
contributions is dealt with simply.

 - Dennis 

-----Original Message-----
From: David Nuescheler [mailto:david@day.com] 
http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/cmis/200901/msg00000.html
Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2009 07:29
To: dennis.hamilton@acm.org
Cc: CMIS TC List
Subject: Re: [cmis] Reference Implementation Considerations

Hi Dennis,

thanks a lot for your comments.

I think this is a great summary of issues at hand with a reference
implementation. I think that I agree with a lot of the points and I would
like
emphasize the importance of a proper intellectual property clearance
and licensing.

While I agree that SourceForge offers some of the tooling that is
required to develop
software in the open I would like to mention that a non-profit community
open source organization like the Apache Software Foundation has a number of
processes in place that make sure that the software produced
is created in a clean environment from IP [1] and Licensing [2] standpoint.

It is this very framework that allows all the commercial vendors to
participate without
the danger of any repercussions that we have all witnessed in recent
lawsuits like
the SCO v. IBM case [3].
[ ... ]

[1] http://incubator.apache.org/ip-clearance/index.html
[2] http://www.apache.org/licenses/
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO_v._IBM
[4] http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/about.html
[5] http://www.eclipse.org/org/foundation/
[6] http://www.fsf.org/about/

On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 8:50 PM, Dennis E. Hamilton
http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/cmis/200812/msg00073.html
<dennis.hamilton@acm.org> wrote:
> I was a little startled to see the discussion of reference implementations
from Jens Hübel [1, 3] and David Nuescheler [2].  I had it in my head that a
reference implementation is pretty far away from what fits under an OASIS TC
activity.  The chartered scope of the CMIS TC is entirely focused on the
production and maintenance of specifications.
>
> At the same time, I think reference implementations are a great thing to
have, and we could do with a lot more of them.  So, without much
consideration of the governance, charter, and OASIS suitability issues that
there might be, here are the considerations that surfaced for me based on my
previous thinking on this subject.
>
>  - Dennis
>
> Dennis E. Hamilton
> ------------------
> NuovoDoc: Design for Document System Interoperability
> mailto:Dennis.Hamilton@acm.org | gsm:+1-206.779.9430
> http://NuovoDoc.com http://ODMA.info/dev/ http://nfoWorks.org
>
>
> PS: After the discussion on today's call, I thought it worthwhile to post
this much.  I have been digging into the specification and I am now more
convinced that a reference-implementation set might be called for.  This
will help us come to grips with problems around options, discoverability,
and the heavy reliance on CMIS-opaque elements.
>
>        -       -       -       -       -       -       -       -       -
-
>
> GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR CMIS REFERENCE IMPLEMENTATIONS
>
> 1.  OPEN ISSUE: HOSTING OF REFERENCE IMPLEMENTATION ACTIVITY
[ ... ]
> 2.  OPEN ISSUE: PROPERTY RIGHTS IN THE REFERENCE IMPLEMENTATION
[ ... ]
> 3.  CHARACTERISTICS OF A REFERENCE IMPLEMENTATION
[ ... ]
> 4.  CHALLENGES FOR CMIS REFERENCE IMPLEMENTATIONS
[ .. ]