
The tragedy of Eclipse.org - r11t
http://www.spearce.org/2010/02/the-tragedy-of-eclipse-org.html
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blasdel
_> Yup, the iplog is a PDF file holding XML. The foundation is trying to move
from an HTML based iplog to an XML based format. So we generated our iplog in
XML, using code I wrote in JGit to mine the Git revision history. Someone told
the legal team at the Eclipse Foundation that you can’t edit a PDF, so they
“freeze” the iplog by putting its contents in PDF. But they don’t have an XSL
to format it in human readable text, so we get this instead._

It's even worse than that! The PDF is titled "Microsoft Word - Document29" and
has headings duplicating the name of the tag for each type:
[https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.eclipse.org/eg...](https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.eclipse.org/egit/iplog/v0.7.0.pdf)

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bretpiatt
[Disclaimer: I do not work for IBM, I do work for Rackspace, I have been in
"the corporate world" for over a decade, I have used Eclipse as a developer
and I'm currently helping get a project going around cloud deployment through
the IDE]

The structure isn't just to make people's lives difficult. Is it going to be
the perfect process for everything? -> probably not. Will it help keep the end
user experience and quality high on the project? -> probably so.

Working at a place like IBM doesn't mean you want to "do evil" just like
working for a small startup doesn't mean you're automagically out to only "do
good". Take a real look at the amount of quality stuff IBM contributes to the
OSS community: <http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource>

Another example, take a look at where your Linux kernel is coming from:
<http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10288910-16.html> \-- More help from IBM.

~~~
blasdel
_"I give permission for IBM, its customers, partners, and minions, to use
JSLint for evil."_
[http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/theater/video.php?v=crockford...](http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/theater/video.php?v=crockford-
json)

~~~
neilc
To be fair, that clause of the JSLint license is idiotic.

~~~
gjm11
I think it's hilarious. Tomayto, tomahto.

~~~
neilc
"Idiotic" and "hilarious" are not necessarily disjoint. Putting "hilarious"
clauses in a software license is not usually a productive policy.

~~~
jbellis
It's what economists call "signaling." It tells people, "there's a human
behind this, not just lawyers." (Your inner lawyer is probably preparing to
retort, "lawyers are humans, too!" QED.)

~~~
neilc
Signaling is all well and good, but the _license text_ is a terrible the place
to do it.

 _"there's a human behind this, not just lawyers."_

MIT/2-clause BSD isn't exactly pages of boilerplate legalese, either.

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jbellis
cached:
[http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:-Xe_P_DouNYJ:www.spearce...](http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:-Xe_P_DouNYJ:www.spearce.org/2010/02/the-
tragedy-of-eclipse-org.html+the+tragedy+of+eclipse.org&hl=en&gl=us&strip=1)

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blasdel
It's like everything distasteful about the Apache Foundation, but amplified a
few orders of magnitude. Not surprising since the same corporate goons (IBM)
are at the helm, except that this time around they're the founders and
original contributors, not just filling a vacuum capitalizing on an existing
project.

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maigret
Corps will never invest money in a software that they can't use, or worse can
get sued millions for IP violation. IP validation is relevant, and it's
probably a lot of work for the reviewers too. Software development isn't what
it was in the sixties, and looking at the Eclipse worldwide use & acceptance,
this process seems to pretty successful.

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tzs
One of his complaints is that discussions concerning the legal status of
contributions takes place in private, rather than on the public mailing lists.

This seems quite reasonable to me. Discuss whether or not some piece of code
infringes a patent, say, in a medium that leaves an easily searchable public
record, and you are practically begging the patent owner to come ask you to
license the patent.

