[consult] [arin-announce] Call for Community Consultation - SoftwareRepository

> 1. Should software in this repository be restricted only to 
> contributions that are licensed to be in the public domain? 
> If so, what license should be used (GNU/BSD/others)?

It should be any licence which is listed by OSI at
http://www.opensource.org/licenses
If the software uses a modified form of one of these licences, such as
the MIT or BSD licence with a different organization name, then they
should state which licence they have used as a base, and supply the
output of the UNIX diff command between their licence text and the OSI
listed text.

Note that none of the OSI licences denote that software is in the public
domain, therefore, true public domain software should also be acceptable
for the repository.

> 2. Should the repository allow separate developers facilities 
> to maintain code directly (tools like subversion) or be a 
> static-read only repository?

Yes, the repository should be based on a revision control system and
Subversion is a good choice since it is widely implemented, and widely
used. People may prefer git or bzr or arch or CVS, but everyone will
know how to get software out of subversion. In addition, ARIN should
ensure that all packages include a .tar.gz bundle and a .zip bundle
ready to download for the most recent version.

> 3. Should the repository only house collections that reflect 
> ARIN's mission?

Yes, but this should be interpreted broadly. For instance, ARIN does not
operate networks, yet it would be appropriate to house tools used to
manage networks since most of those tools will manipulate IP addresses.
Anything that overlaps ARIN's mission should be included. Note that not
all such tools will use ARIN's repository as a development tool, i.e. a
group who develop a tool using SourceForge could release a new version
of their product, and ARIN could then import that to the ARIN repository
after vetting the licence in case it has changed. The ARIN repository
should actively attempt to have a full and complete collection of tools
which unambiguously reflect ARIN's mission.

--Michael Dillon