Re: java.net, JavaOne

[Fernando Lozano <fernando at lozano dot eti dot br>]

Hi Hans,

> I recommend reading the java.net terms of participation
> (http://www.java.net/terms.csp) carefully, if you are asked to agree to
> it.  Pay particular attention to clause 12.
>
> This issue was raised earlier, but I still see the clause there.  They
> may have limited the services for which you need to agree to this.
>
> Based on my understanding of this agreement, as an HP employee, I would
> certainly not agree to this without consulting an attorney.
>  
It doesn't troubles me (and lots of open source projects hosted there) 
and in fact such a provision is necessary. Suppose someone contributes 
content to a wiki, a blog or to the source code repository of any 
project, and later sues java.net for redistributing the content.

I can't imagine how they could legally mantain the site withtou a clause 
like this (but I'd welcome any advice on how the working could be 
better). For example, they quote parts of forms submissions, blogs and 
articles on the home-page to attract visitors, and they publish this 
under RSS, so they need the right to "adapt". But in other way I guess 
this should be under "fair use" and would not need explicit provision 
for in the terms of participation. Does anyone know a lawyer wo could 
give us an opinion?

Their copyright problem is worse than for sourceforge and similars 
because java.net is not exclusive for open source projects.

> Re: JavaOne
>
> I did give a JavaOne talk last year.  I agree that it's a mixture of
> good technical content and marketing.
>
> The talk acceptance process is very opaque to me.  The talk slides for a
> technical presentation have to be cleared through a Sun technical and
> legal review.  I actually found the former quite helpful (since it
> caught some bugs) and the latter very annoying (since in my case it
> added technical bugs way too late in the process).
>
> In spite of all of this, I think that open source submissions to JavaOne
> are probably a good thing.
>  
Yes, the proccess is very opaque. Basically, the sponsors decide anyway 
they wish. But remember the sponsors support many free software 
projects, so this is not necessarily a bad thing.

About the techinical and legal review, I presented a BOF and did not 
have to pass though any of these. But I missed support when the 
projector didn't work with my notebook. BOFs are very informal and could 
become a GCJ Summit if the audience agress to do so.


[]s, Fernando Lozano