Re: [Maildev] Addons no longer maintained.
Like I wrote, I doubt it's even legal to just take something over and
use the same name without permission. What if the author is just doing
other things for a year and comes back? Which version would you use?
These are difficult issues and even one case could easily take a lot
of resources to sort out.
-Magnus
On 07-02-2019 10:12, John Bieling wrote:
How about this:
If an author cannot be reached even after we tried over a long time,
an AddOn can be set as abandon and it is maybe even hidden from ATN
results. A new Author can create an AddOn with the same name which
automatically marks it as a replacement. (Or the reviewer does that)
If users have installed an abandoned AdOn for which a new version is
avail, Thunderbird will inform the user and allows to switch.
John
Am 07.02.2019 um 08:52 schrieb Magnus Melin <mkmelin+mozilla@iki.fi
mailto:mkmelin+mozilla@iki.fi>:
Agreed first option is always to first get involved with the original
author and work something out.
I'm not too keen on allowing unauthorized takeovers. I doubt you can
even do that legally in most cases: licenses aside, authors do have
moral rights that usually are perpetual. I'd expect the name in
combination with the work to fall under that even if not trademarked.
What would be nice though, is if we could annotate add-ons to
describe what they are forked from. If add-on X is abandoned, someone
would fork it to create add-on Y, and Thunderbird could offer the
user to start using the forked add-on Y instead. But this would only
be offered in case the original was abandoned.
-Magnus
On 06-02-2019 23:34, Onno Ekker wrote:
In the past I have adopted an add-on by contacting the original
author and having him add me on amo as owner.
I think that’s the way it should go, but if the original author
doesn’t reply when contacted, there should be other ways to take
over an extension.
That would be a lot better then another “add-on” Improved, “add-on”
Next or whatever people call it and add to amo/atn and where users
have to search for, because their original add-on stopped working or
was disabled.
Onno
On 6 Feb 2019, at 19:59, Ben Bucksch <ben.bucksch@beonex.com
mailto:ben.bucksch@beonex.com> wrote:
I think this is a valid and important fundamental question:
- If an addon is clearly unmaintained, meaning it does not work
with current supported versions of Thunderbird (TB 60 at the
moment) - and the addon is open-source
- and there is another author who made an update that works, and
fulfills the original extension's purpose - and we gave the original author a chance to respond and he
either does not respond for a reasonable time frame or cannot
give a good explanation,
then do we allow the new author to take over maintenance and
maintainership of the addon?
I think we should, yes.
And I think that question is very important for our addons and for
our users, because I think there are a lot of addons that fall into
this specific category. We could help users this way.
And I'd like to thank people who go through the length of updating
third party addons, and not put bureaucratic roadblocks in their
way. The process should be easy for the new author, esp. when the
old author is clearly and obviously absent.
I think there should be an official and maybe even automated
process for that, which checks the above conditions. 1. and 2.
above are known from existing ATN meta data. Point 3 just needs a
third party upload feature that's enabled under conditions 1 and 2,
and point 4 just needs an automated email to the original author.
Ben
Graeme wrote on 06.02.19 17:34:
When I was working on my addon in the beginning I used some code
from a small addon that did a little piece of what I wanted.
Now I've updated that addon, popmaillistrecipients, in order to
work how to update my own to a MailExtensions addon. The original
popmaillistrecipients addon is now well out of date. (But I really
like using it)
Is there any way that I can put the web extension version on
thunderbird.net http://thunderbird.net other than offering it to
the original author? I sent him the bootstrapped version which to
my knowledge he didn't use...
Blessings
Graeme
Maildev mailing list
Maildev@lists.thunderbird.net
http://lists.thunderbird.net/mailman/listinfo/maildev_lists.thunderbird.net
Ah, I thought you referred to overtaking the AddOn itself, but if it is not possible to even create a new AddOn with the same name, than yes, this makes it difficult.
John
Am 07.02.2019 um 09:35 schrieb Magnus Melin mkmelin+mozilla@iki.fi:
Like I wrote, I doubt it's even legal to just take something over and use the same name without permission. What if the author is just doing other things for a year and comes back? Which version would you use? These are difficult issues and even one case could easily take a lot of resources to sort out.
-Magnus
On 07-02-2019 10:12, John Bieling wrote:
How about this:
If an author cannot be reached even after we tried over a long time, an AddOn can be set as abandon and it is maybe even hidden from ATN results. A new Author can create an AddOn with the same name which automatically marks it as a replacement. (Or the reviewer does that)
If users have installed an abandoned AdOn for which a new version is avail, Thunderbird will inform the user and allows to switch.
John
Am 07.02.2019 um 08:52 schrieb Magnus Melin mkmelin+mozilla@iki.fi:
Agreed first option is always to first get involved with the original author and work something out.
I'm not too keen on allowing unauthorized takeovers. I doubt you can even do that legally in most cases: licenses aside, authors do have moral rights that usually are perpetual. I'd expect the name in combination with the work to fall under that even if not trademarked.
What would be nice though, is if we could annotate add-ons to describe what they are forked from. If add-on X is abandoned, someone would fork it to create add-on Y, and Thunderbird could offer the user to start using the forked add-on Y instead. But this would only be offered in case the original was abandoned.
-Magnus
On 06-02-2019 23:34, Onno Ekker wrote:
In the past I have adopted an add-on by contacting the original author and having him add me on amo as owner.
I think that’s the way it should go, but if the original author doesn’t reply when contacted, there should be other ways to take over an extension.
That would be a lot better then another “add-on” Improved, “add-on” Next or whatever people call it and add to amo/atn and where users have to search for, because their original add-on stopped working or was disabled.
Onno
On 6 Feb 2019, at 19:59, Ben Bucksch ben.bucksch@beonex.com wrote:
I think this is a valid and important fundamental question:
If an addon is clearly unmaintained, meaning it does not work with current supported versions of Thunderbird (TB 60 at the moment)
and the addon is open-source
and there is another author who made an update that works, and fulfills the original extension's purpose
and we gave the original author a chance to respond and he either does not respond for a reasonable time frame or cannot give a good explanation,
then do we allow the new author to take over maintenance and maintainership of the addon?
I think we should, yes.
And I think that question is very important for our addons and for our users, because I think there are a lot of addons that fall into this specific category. We could help users this way.
And I'd like to thank people who go through the length of updating third party addons, and not put bureaucratic roadblocks in their way. The process should be easy for the new author, esp. when the old author is clearly and obviously absent.
I think there should be an official and maybe even automated process for that, which checks the above conditions. 1. and 2. above are known from existing ATN meta data. Point 3 just needs a third party upload feature that's enabled under conditions 1 and 2, and point 4 just needs an automated email to the original author.
Ben
Graeme wrote on 06.02.19 17:34:
When I was working on my addon in the beginning I used some code from a small addon that did a little piece of what I wanted.
Now I've updated that addon, popmaillistrecipients, in order to work how to update my own to a MailExtensions addon. The original popmaillistrecipients addon is now well out of date. (But I really like using it)
Is there any way that I can put the web extension version on thunderbird.net other than offering it to the original author? I sent him the bootstrapped version which to my knowledge he didn't use...
Blessings
Graeme
Maildev mailing list
Maildev@lists.thunderbird.net
http://lists.thunderbird.net/mailman/listinfo/maildev_lists.thunderbird.net
Small technical detail: it's not about the add-on name that can't be
created, but about he add-on's ID which should be unique.
When adopting/overtaking an add-on, users will only get the new version
automatically iof the ID is the same (and they should have add-on updates
enabled).
The add-on owner/author doesn't have to be changed though. For ATN you can
add another author, who has the right to upload new versions.
In the add-on itself, developers can specify creator and developer, at
least for old overlay XUL extensions.
Unfortunately the new MailExtensions use a different format, where you can
only specify an author or developer, but not both.
My adopted add-on Threadkey has two authors on ATN (both with role Owner),
and I put my own name as creator in the add-on itself.
The add-on Mail Redirect now also has two authors on ATN (both with role
Owner), but I kept the original author as creator of the add-on. When I
have to change this add-on to a MailExtension, I will probably also change
the author to myself, because it will require a major rewrite and in
MailExtensions there is only room for one name.
Onno
On Thu, Feb 7, 2019 at 9:41 AM John Bieling john.bieling@gmx.de wrote:
Ah, I thought you referred to overtaking the AddOn itself, but if it is
not possible to even create a new AddOn with the same name, than yes, this
makes it difficult.
John
Am 07.02.2019 um 09:35 schrieb Magnus Melin mkmelin+mozilla@iki.fi:
Like I wrote, I doubt it's even legal to just take something over and use
the same name without permission. What if the author is just doing other
things for a year and comes back? Which version would you use? These are
difficult issues and even one case could easily take a lot of resources
to sort out.
-Magnus
On 07-02-2019 10:12, John Bieling wrote:
How about this:
If an author cannot be reached even after we tried over a long time, an
AddOn can be set as abandon and it is maybe even hidden from ATN results. A
new Author can create an AddOn with the same name which automatically marks
it as a replacement. (Or the reviewer does that)
If users have installed an abandoned AdOn for which a new version is
avail, Thunderbird will inform the user and allows to switch.
John
Am 07.02.2019 um 08:52 schrieb Magnus Melin mkmelin+mozilla@iki.fi:
Agreed first option is always to first get involved with the original
author and work something out.
I'm not too keen on allowing unauthorized takeovers. I doubt you can even
do that legally in most cases: licenses aside, authors do have moral rights
that usually are perpetual. I'd expect the name in combination with the
work to fall under that even if not trademarked.
What would be nice though, is if we could annotate add-ons to describe
what they are forked from. If add-on X is abandoned, someone would fork it
to create add-on Y, and Thunderbird could offer the user to start using the
forked add-on Y instead. But this would only be offered in case the
original was abandoned.
-Magnus
On 06-02-2019 23:34, Onno Ekker wrote:
In the past I have adopted an add-on by contacting the original author and
having him add me on amo as owner.
I think that’s the way it should go, but if the original author doesn’t
reply when contacted, there should be other ways to take over an extension.
That would be a lot better then another “add-on” Improved, “add-on” Next
or whatever people call it and add to amo/atn and where users have to
search for, because their original add-on stopped working or was disabled.
Onno
On 6 Feb 2019, at 19:59, Ben Bucksch ben.bucksch@beonex.com wrote:
I think this is a valid and important fundamental question:
1. If an addon is clearly unmaintained, meaning it does not work with
current supported versions of Thunderbird (TB 60 at the moment)
2. and the addon is open-source
3. and there is another author who made an update that works, and
fulfills the original extension's purpose
4. and we gave the original author a chance to respond and he either
does not respond for a reasonable time frame or cannot give a good
explanation,
then do we allow the new author to take over maintenance and
maintainership of the addon?
I think we should, yes.
And I think that question is very important for our addons and for our
users, because I think there are a lot of addons that fall into this
specific category. We could help users this way.
And I'd like to thank people who go through the length of updating third
party addons, and not put bureaucratic roadblocks in their way. The
process should be easy for the new author, esp. when the old author is
clearly and obviously absent.
I think there should be an official and maybe even automated process for
that, which checks the above conditions. 1. and 2. above are known from
existing ATN meta data. Point 3 just needs a third party upload feature
that's enabled under conditions 1 and 2, and point 4 just needs an
automated email to the original author.
Ben
Graeme wrote on 06.02.19 17:34:
When I was working on my addon in the beginning I used some code from a
small addon that did a little piece of what I wanted.
Now I've updated that addon, popmaillistrecipients, in order to work how
to update my own to a MailExtensions addon. The original
popmaillistrecipients addon is now well out of date. (But I really like
using it)
Is there any way that I can put the web extension version on
thunderbird.net other than offering it to the original author? I sent him
the bootstrapped version which to my knowledge he didn't use...
Blessings
Graeme
Maildev mailing list
Maildev@lists.thunderbird.net
http://lists.thunderbird.net/mailman/listinfo/maildev_lists.thunderbird.net
Maildev mailing list
Maildev@lists.thunderbird.net
http://lists.thunderbird.net/mailman/listinfo/maildev_lists.thunderbird.net
Maildev mailing listMaildev@lists.thunderbird.nethttp://lists.thunderbird.net/mailman/listinfo/maildev_lists.thunderbird.net
Maildev mailing list
Maildev@lists.thunderbird.net
http://lists.thunderbird.net/mailman/listinfo/maildev_lists.thunderbird.net
Maildev mailing list
Maildev@lists.thunderbird.net
http://lists.thunderbird.net/mailman/listinfo/maildev_lists.thunderbird.net
On Thu, Feb 07, 2019 at 10:35 +0200, Magnus Melin wrote:
Like I wrote, I doubt it's even legal to just take something over and use
the same name without permission.
re-using names itself is not forbidden --
or only if there is a registered trademark.
What if the author is just doing other
things for a year and comes back? Which version would you use? These are
difficult issues and even one case could easily take a lot of resources to
sort out.
If the old addon site is still there, but there is a new one with
a fresh name registry ... then allowing to re-use a name under certain
circumstances sounds pragmatic. i'd leave this to a few folks who can consider
the probably very few cases where someone did an addon and wants to use a name that
was already used in the old addon-instance. Trying to create a full criterion
catalogue and applying some automatic reasoning is comparatively more complex.
a fictional example: if f-droid were to re-do their addon system but the
"Maps" authors were unavailable for a longer time ... and now someone has
a nice mapping app and the old addon is anyway not available ... it'd be a pity
if that name is forever forbidden. Then again, some extra effort to contact
the authors of that plugin might be due because it's currently a somewhat
popular app. By comparison, another app that is rarely used and hasn't
been updated for years might lead to less efforts to contact the authors.
2cent'ly yours,
holger
Given that we allow add-on authors to select the names and unique
identifiers of their add-ons, I think you're right that those are
trademarks which can't be unilaterally handed over to someone else's
control without the original author's permission.
That is, unless there are terms and conditions that the add-on author
agrees to when first submitting an add-on to ATN, which spell out that
they are required to maintain a valid email address in their profile in
ATN and to respond to emails sent to that address by the maintainers of
ATN, and that by submitting their add-on they are relinquishing partial
ownership rights over the add-on's identifiers and name trademarks to
the maintainers of ATN and giving them the right to transfer control of
abandoned add-ons to new maintainers if they are unmaintained for some
specific period of time and the authors do not respond to emails from
ATN about them.
That is, we might want to think about altering the terms and conditions
that authors agree to when they submit an add-on now, and asking all the
current add-on maintainers to agree to the new terms or they can't
submit new revisions of their add-ons. That won't solve the problem for
add-ons that are already abandoned, but it will for add-ons that are
abandoned in the future.
The copyright on the code also has to be dealt with. Add-ons that use
copyleft licenses should not be any trouble transferring to a new
maintainer. Add-ons that don't use copyleft licenses can't even be
forked, legally, so there's really no way to solve this problem for
those add-ons; if they're abandoned, then unfortunately they're just dead.
jik
On 2/7/19 3:35 AM, Magnus Melin wrote:
Like I wrote, I doubt it's even legal to just take something over and
use the same name without permission. What if the author is just doing
other things for a year and comes back? Which version would you use?
These are difficult issues and even one case could easily take a lot
of resources to sort out.
-Magnus
On 07-02-2019 10:12, John Bieling wrote:
How about this:
If an author cannot be reached even after we tried over a long time,
an AddOn can be set as abandon and it is maybe even hidden from ATN
results. A new Author can create an AddOn with the same name which
automatically marks it as a replacement. (Or the reviewer does that)
If users have installed an abandoned AdOn for which a new version is
avail, Thunderbird will inform the user and allows to switch.
John
Am 07.02.2019 um 08:52 schrieb Magnus Melin <mkmelin+mozilla@iki.fi
mailto:mkmelin+mozilla@iki.fi>:
Agreed first option is always to first get involved with the
original author and work something out.
I'm not too keen on allowing unauthorized takeovers. I doubt you can
even do that legally in most cases: licenses aside, authors do have
moral rights that usually are perpetual. I'd expect the name in
combination with the work to fall under that even if not trademarked.
What would be nice though, is if we could annotate add-ons to
describe what they are forked from. If add-on X is abandoned,
someone would fork it to create add-on Y, and Thunderbird could
offer the user to start using the forked add-on Y instead. But this
would only be offered in case the original was abandoned.
-Magnus
On 06-02-2019 23:34, Onno Ekker wrote:
In the past I have adopted an add-on by contacting the original
author and having him add me on amo as owner.
I think that’s the way it should go, but if the original author
doesn’t reply when contacted, there should be other ways to take
over an extension.
That would be a lot better then another “add-on” Improved, “add-on”
Next or whatever people call it and add to amo/atn and where users
have to search for, because their original add-on stopped working
or was disabled.
Onno
On 6 Feb 2019, at 19:59, Ben Bucksch <ben.bucksch@beonex.com
mailto:ben.bucksch@beonex.com> wrote:
I think this is a valid and important fundamental question:
- If an addon is clearly unmaintained, meaning it does not work
with current supported versions of Thunderbird (TB 60 at the
moment) - and the addon is open-source
- and there is another author who made an update that works, and
fulfills the original extension's purpose - and we gave the original author a chance to respond and he
either does not respond for a reasonable time frame or cannot
give a good explanation,
then do we allow the new author to take over maintenance and
maintainership of the addon?
I think we should, yes.
And I think that question is very important for our addons and for
our users, because I think there are a lot of addons that fall
into this specific category. We could help users this way.
And I'd like to thank people who go through the length of updating
third party addons, and not put bureaucratic roadblocks in their
way. The process should be easy for the new author, esp. when the
old author is clearly and obviously absent.
I think there should be an official and maybe even automated
process for that, which checks the above conditions. 1. and 2.
above are known from existing ATN meta data. Point 3 just needs a
third party upload feature that's enabled under conditions 1 and
2, and point 4 just needs an automated email to the original author.
Ben
Graeme wrote on 06.02.19 17:34:
When I was working on my addon in the beginning I used some code
from a small addon that did a little piece of what I wanted.
Now I've updated that addon, popmaillistrecipients, in order to
work how to update my own to a MailExtensions addon. The original
popmaillistrecipients addon is now well out of date. (But I
really like using it)
Is there any way that I can put the web extension version on
thunderbird.net http://thunderbird.net other than offering it
to the original author? I sent him the bootstrapped version which
to my knowledge he didn't use...
Blessings
Graeme
Maildev mailing list
Maildev@lists.thunderbird.net
http://lists.thunderbird.net/mailman/listinfo/maildev_lists.thunderbird.net
On 2/7/19 5:42 AM, holger krekel wrote:
On Thu, Feb 07, 2019 at 10:35 +0200, Magnus Melin wrote:
Like I wrote, I doubt it's even legal to just take something over and use
the same name without permission.
re-using names itself is not forbidden --
or only if there is a registered trademark.
I wish people who are not experts in intellectual property law would
stop offering opinions in this discussion as if they were.
First and foremost, it is worth noting that trademark law varies widely
from country to country, and given that Thunderbird is very much a
world-wide phenomenon, it is very difficult to render pronouncements
about what is or is not "forbidden" that are correct everywhere people
use Thunderbird or write add-ons.
Second, in many jurisdictions, including the United States, trademarks
do not need to be registered to be enforceable.
See, e.g., https://www.trademark.iastate.edu/basics: "A trademark does
not need to be registered for the owner to prevent others from using a
trademark or from using a confusingly similar mark."
Jonathan Kamens
Hi Jonathan,
On Fri, Feb 08, 2019 at 07:51 -0500, Jonathan Kamens wrote:
On 2/7/19 5:42 AM, holger krekel wrote:
On Thu, Feb 07, 2019 at 10:35 +0200, Magnus Melin wrote:
Like I wrote, I doubt it's even legal to just take something over and use
the same name without permission.
re-using names itself is not forbidden --
or only if there is a registered trademark.
I wish people who are not experts in intellectual property law would stop
offering opinions in this discussion as if they were.
I am no lawyer, indeed, just have been involved in some name conflicts involving
trademarks and registered names, including on community respositories larger
than Thunderbird (pypi packaging index, github, apple) ...
still makes sense to stay out, will do!
best,
holger
Magnus Melin wrote on 07.02.19 09:35:
Like I wrote, I doubt it's even legal to just take something over and
use the same name without permission
Open source was explicitly designed to "take something over" and
continue the project when the old maintainer doesn't do a good job anymore.
Regarding the name, that's trademark law. It works very differently from
copyright. Unlike copyright, a trademark doesn't appear automatically.
You first have to show that you have a trademark. It has to be
registered or earned by wide distribution. Things like "poplistmarker"
with 5000 users aren't trademarks. Almost none of our addons would have
a trademark.
Provided the addon was Open-Source, and the maintainer is gone, takeover
should be fine. That's what Open Source is for. Users are important.
licenses aside, authors do have moral rights that usually are perpetual.
"Moral right" is another word for "copyright", see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights. We're talking about open
source here, which covers the copyright.
There is copyright (covered), trademark (covered), patent (not
relevant), industrial designs (not relevant) etc. I see no applicable
right here being violated by taking over an unmaintained open-source
"popmailfilter" something addon. That's what Open Source was designed
for, to allow exactly that.
FWIW, I'm not suggesting to take the addon away from the original author.
Luckily, ATN has the feature of allowing multiple owners.
The old owner could just stay, the new one added. If the old one really cares and comes back, he still has his project there. He could even remove the new owner, if he's ready to take back maintenance.
I'm really talking about unmaintained addons here, where the author has simply left and stopped caring. There are thousands of those. And they are all braking now, leaving users stranded.
I understand the theoretical concerns. I don't want to take anything away from anybody. I just want to help the users. That's most important for me.
Ben
On 2/8/2019, 3:45:26 PM, Ben Bucksch ben.bucksch@beonex.com wrote:
There is copyright (covered), trademark (covered), patent (not
relevant), industrial designs (not relevant) etc. I see no applicable
right here being violated by taking over an unmaintained open-source
"popmailfilter" something addon. That's what Open Source was designed
for, to allow exactly that.
Exactly, and just to be sure all bases are covered, just put a process
in place that takes into account the possibility that a dev who
abandoned an Addon may come back at some point in the future. Maybe give
them the option of taking it back over, or maybe a worst case scenario,
force a name change of the Addon (but not the UniqueID, I would argue
that belongs to the project, as its only purpose is to give the Addon a
unique ID within the project).