Tinymail code of conduct for people who compete

[Philip Van Hoof <spam pvanhoof be>]

I want to be early with this type of things. That way few discussion
about it are possible: Either you haven't joined and you accept it and
join or don't accept it and therefore don't join, or you have joined.

For them, this E-mail is important. It's an attempt to get their opinion
on this (before dictator-like deciding about it).

I'm planning to enforce (yes enforce, I will explain this later in this
E-mail) good behaviour between competing individuals and companies when
it's about contract-working on feature implementations that are supposed
to go in tinymail (code that I need to accept for inclusion).

My point of view is that tinymail "can" be a playground for competing
companies (I will stop mentioning the individuals, but they too are
implied with this).

I, however, want as much cooperation in terms of analysis and design as
possible. I also want cooperation in terms of implementations but I
don't see this as a requirement. I do see it as a requirement that
cooperation after implementation is finished, MUST be possible. Which is
why I will NOT change the LGPL license of tinymail.

I also believe that companies who DO NOT want any such cooperation in
future, MUST be allowed to link their binaries with tinymail components.
Which is why I added the "L" of "LGPL" to the license. Those are not,
not at all, implied with any of what I am writing in this E-mail.

Because I do understand that design cooperation sometimes implies
secrecy enforced by the customer in the format of a non disclosure
agreement (for example, the envisioned existence of the feature is to be
disclosed until the release of their product), I would like to ENFORCE a
code of conduct inside the tinymail project. One that is guarded by me.

That code would simply state that if any company does an unfair move to
a competing other company, like disclosing such secret information or
like trying to influence me into believing that another company did this
(falsely accusing somebody, or lobbying me without proving), that this
company will be publicly banned by me from getting any work of them
accepted by me, for inclusion in the official tinymail project.


By that I mean that this company would have to fork tinymail if they
would want to make any customisations to it in future.

Furthermore, because I decided to license tinymail as LGPL, they would
still have to open their code (but I would refuse direct involvement of
them and their employees to the tinymail project. So their contributions
would be piece by piece copied using the rights that the LGPL enforces.
Giving them as few credit as possible, but still all the credits that
are legally enforced by the LGPL -- but nothing more --).


I'm NOT expecting this to happen. I would, however, like to make it VERY
clear that I (the tinymail maintainer) would NOT enjoy such behaviour
and that I will ACTIVELY combat it.

I would enjoy healthy competition between parties based on "being the
best", "providing the best solution", "offering the best price", "etc"


For this I put my own reputation of "being a human who wants to do good"
at stake (and I know this is a simplistic point of view, try to read
some books about philosophy and ethics if you want to try to figure out
what I mean with "wanting"- or "the desire" to do good).

People will, indeed, have to trust 'me' that I, being the maintainer,
wants to do good. And that I will use that as my wisdom when judging
(not my own interests, which would indeed be hard not to involve. And I
understand that this is hard -- in a Socrates point of view: I know that
I know nothing: I know that I don't know that I can resist it --).

I think most people know that I'm an individual with certain principles.
Wanting to do good is one of them. (I know you probably shouldn't do
business with people who want to do good, unless they are idiots. But
then again, you probably shouldn't do business with free software people
if that's your business's point of view on doing business anyway).

This E-mail in five words: 

	"Mutual respect and good behaviour," when competing each other.



ps. Some people have been added in BCC of this E-mail.


-- 
Philip Van Hoof, software developer
home: me at pvanhoof dot be 
gnome: pvanhoof at gnome dot org 
http://www.pvanhoof.be/blog