Draft Software Releases [Proposals]

Procedures for making draft software publicly available for comment. The license text has been agreed by the Software Advisory Group (SAG), but the procedural aspects are just outline proposals and need further discussion.

Introduction

BBF wishes to be able to make publicly-available draft software releases.

Reasons to make draft software releases:

• Due diligence: should lead to higher quality software deliverables (implies ability to handle comments received).
• Transparency/publicity: letting people see what BBF is working on.
• Providing code to be tested: don’t want barriers to road-testing.

Additional rationale for making draft software releases:

• Desire to share draft software with the relevant design authorities, e.g. with IETF for core YANG modules, with IEEE for Ethernet-related YANG modules etc. Any materials sent to many of these design authorities will be publicly available, so the problem has to be solved anyway.
• The community that’s interested in BBF activities is bigger than the BBF membership. BBF membership covers the specification writers but not the implementers. It’s desirable to signal BBF intentions to the bigger audience as early as possible.

Additional notes about draft software releases:

• A draft software release is subject to major or minor change before it becomes final:
  • For example, data model definitions and/or APIs might change in non-backwards-compatible ways.
  • A draft software release consists of either:
    • Standalone draft software, or
    • A draft specification plus draft software that is part of that draft specification.
    • A draft software release is made available publicly:
      • It can be downloaded freely without the need to accept an agreement.
      • The draft software will be placed on a public GitHub site (or similar).

The draft specification document, if any, may be placed on a BBF web site or may also be placed on a public GitHub site (or similar).

Handling of Public Comments

BBF staff and members may at their discretion view public comments and incorporate (or not) ideas or feedback reflected in those comments in the same manner as normal BBF contributions.

Public comments are given with no assurance that they are original, or that the commenter has the necessary legal rights to contribute any included intellectual property. BBF staff and members should therefore exercise caution before including in a contribution any text or code received in a public comment.

License

This license will be included in each file that is part of the draft software release.

Copyright (c) <YEAR>, Broadband Forum

This is draft software, is subject to change, and has not been
approved by members of the Broadband Forum. It is made available to
non-members for internal study purposes only. For such study
purposes, you have the right to make copies and modifications only
for distributing this software internally within your organization
among those who are working on it (redistribution outside of your
organization for other than study purposes of the original or
modified works is not permitted). For the avoidance of doubt, no
patent rights are conferred by this license. 

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS
"AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS
FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT,
INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING,
BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES;
LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER
CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN
ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

Unless a different date is specified upon issuance of a draft
software release, all member and non-member license rights under the
draft software release will expire on the earliest to occur of (i)
nine months from the date of issuance, (ii) the issuance of another
version of the same software release, or (iii) the adoption of the
draft software release as final.