Richard Fontana

<p>Stephen, it is certainly true that Canonical was not the only participant, but from what I observed on the sidelines the group of active participants was fairly small at the beginning and got progressively smaller as time went on. Also, notably, for-profit corporations were overrepresented and the class of noncorporate contributors to open source projects was severely underrepresented (at best). We only have three months of publicly archived mailing lists for Harmony, but consider the minutes of what seems to be <a href="http://lists.harmonyagreements.org/pipermail/harmony-drafting/2011-June/000052.html">the most recent Harmony drafters' meeting</a>. Four attendees: 2 Canonical lawyers, a Canonical employee who is participating based on her personal interest, and you.</p><p>I have explained that my limited participation in Harmony was largely observational (despite the much-appreciated efforts of Canonical's Amanda Brock to encourage my involvement), but I suppose I haven't quite explained why. It is really because from the start Harmony was oriented towards a maximalist legal model and I was moving in entirely the opposite direction, based on my experiences as Red Hat's open source licensing counsel, in contexts where Red Hat was contributor as well as contributee, and based on what I had learned from the writings of people like Michael Meeks and Simon Phipps. So really from the outset my view was, admittedly, rather negative:&nbsp; "how much harm could this unwise initiative actually do to open source and free software?".</p>

One thing I didn't address in my article (earlier drafts went into detail but I was trying to conserve space, and even so I've split it up into 2 parts) was my own limited involvement in Harmony, but I'll explain that in this comment.

I attended some meetings as a representative of Red Hat, mostly in the earlier phase of Harmony, and posted a few messages to the private mailing list. My participation was basically observational, especially as time went on, though early on I was graciously invited by Amanda Brock to reprise my LinuxCon 2010 talk which was a skeptical treatment of the subject of contributor agreements (see my slides at http://ref.fedorapeople.org/fontana-linuxcon.html). I should also note that Amanda Brock encouraged and welcomed my participation in Harmony. (This disclosure does not violate the Chatham House Rule as I read it.)

It is true, despite the Chatham House Rule, Harmony was advertised as being open to all participants (though I have heard of some reports of significant delay in getting interested participants subscribed to the private mailing list). Nevertheless, I believe "cloaked" is an accurate description. In retrospect, I think the Chatham-induced secrecy of Harmony diminished its chances of success. One of the reasons why the Chatham House Rule is problematic, I have found, is that it tends to be self-interpreted in a stricter way than the actual formulation of the rule might suggest.