LWN: Comments on "LPC: Michael Meeks on LibreOffice and code ownership"

LPC: Michael Meeks on LibreOffice and code ownership

jospoortvliet — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 17:16:51 +0000

As said a little up in this thread: Canonical's Harmony comes to mind. But indeed the history of OpenOffice.org itself is also telling.

LPC: Michael Meeks on LibreOffice and code ownership

rahulsundaram — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 18:44:30 +0000

http://opensource.com/law/10/6/project-harmony-looks-impr...

LPC: Michael Meeks on LibreOffice and code ownership

phython — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 18:26:32 +0000

Which project harmony? The java libraries or the old qt replacement or a different one?

LPC: Michael Meeks on LibreOffice and code ownership

renox — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 14:11:48 +0000

Another difference would be that with BSD, MySQL wouldn't have been bought for 1 billion..

Using Git

jnareb — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 12:09:08 +0000

" At this point, Michael decided that we'd had enough and needed a brief technical break. So he talked about Git: the LibreOffice project likes to work with shallow clones because the full history is so huge. But it's not possible to push patches from a shallow clone, that is a pain. Michael also noted that git am is obnoxious to use. "

About shallow clones: perhaps now that large project (and large number of contributors) is using them, those issues would be fixed. There was even some work in progress presented on git mailing list adding support for lazy/sparse clones (in addition to recently added support for sparse checkouts), which generalizes also shallow clones, and which has support for narrowing and widening selection; if I remember correctly this would allow to push from narrow clone to narrow clone etc. But this was one person show...

About git am: what were the problems with it? Why the complaint wasn't posted on git mailing list, for git developers to be aware of it?

Copyright Assignment Meh

jberkus — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 01:06:10 +0000

As an advisor to several software companies, I'll tell you why most companies who have copyright assignment policies have them: they don't actually want outside contributors. Really.

Open source is now the mainstream for software development. But that doesn't mean that companies who now feel obligated to open source their code in order to complete *like* the idea. They prefer to use open source as a distribution model only, and keep code development internal. It's less work for their engineering staff, less work for their lawyers, and they don't expect outside contributions to be useful anyway.

From my perspective, this is a fine attitude if a company is honest with itself. Where trouble develops is when a company wants to "keep its cake and eat it too", but having draconian copyright control by still having a program to "build its developer community". Since these two goals can never be brought into concordance (think Sun), the projects will be considered failures and the company will blame "the open source community" (whoever that is).

--Josh "10 ways to destroy your community" Berkus

Why the FSF Copyright Assignment is Wrong

vonbrand — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 16:25:36 +0000

In any case, I'm happier with the individual who wrote said code having any "special rights" (it's their own!) than some third party taking over.

Forking doesn't work

mmeeks — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 09:48:36 +0000

Hi there,

> And this is the part of the criciticm of copyright assignment that I
> don't get. If we really believe in our FOSS licenses - and we should,
> otherwise why use them - then they will preseve our freedoms in both
> copyright assignment projects or in non-copyright assignment projects.

Ah - you are one of the 'too nice' people that hasn't twisted their brain around the tortured world of proprietary contracts. As soon as a company steps away from a transparent, open Free Software license - the proprietary license will almost certainly have "non-fork" provisions - such that these guys are bound to the other side of whatever fork you do. So - sure, of course you always have the right to fork: but the effectiveness of doing that on your own is going to be small, and you may find you have a set of stake-holders that agree with your direction; but simply cannot help you due to their proprietary license agreement.

So - the 'additional' licenses, people get, often do not simply give people the ability to re-use the code in proprietary software; but bind them in many other, un-acceptable ways.

HTH.

Why the FSF Copyright Assignment is Wrong

rgmoore — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 02:37:09 +0000

1. It creates an unequal balance of power between the assignee and the contributors, since the assignee gets more rights in the code than the rest of the ecosystem.

I think this is the key point. The essence of Free Software is giving up control over your code and letting others have equal access to it. Attempts to privilege one author over others- either copyright assignment policies or licenses that give special rights to the "original author"- go against that ideal. The inequality between the assignee and the other authors are the root of all of the other problems you describe.

LPC: Michael Meeks on LibreOffice and code ownership

zooko — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 02:35:14 +0000

Very interesting! What was the issue with corporate agreements around open sourcing the SPARC? I was very disappointed that the crypto units were removed from the open source release, but that was due to (possibly extra-legal) interference from the NSA rather than due to corporate agreements.

Why the FSF Copyright Assignment is Wrong

jejb — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 20:42:15 +0000

> If the success of xemacs is the only evidence for his criticism of FSF's assignment policy, then FSF's assignment policy must be pretty excellent.

OK, so the reasons why I think copyright assignment is bad for the ecosystem essentially boils down to

1. It creates an unequal balance of power between the assignee and the contributors, since the assignee gets more rights in the code than the rest of the ecosystem.
2. It's unsafe because, however much you might trust the assignee now, it may be bought by some evil company or its board may change composition.
3. It creates anaemic communities and bureaucracy. A good example of this is evolution: when Novell gave up requiring copyright assignment, the number of external contributors jumped massively (plus Red Hat contributions went from near zero to being quite substantial).
4. It's jurisdiction based. I know people who've failed for years to contribute patches to the FSF simply because they don't live in the USA and they refuse to sign an assignment which would be invalid in their home jurisdiction.

Conversely, it's very hard to get out of the FSF why they think copyright assignment (at least to them) is a good thing. The basic reasons seem to be

1. We have to own all the code to enforce the licence. Well, this one's been debunked by the SLFC with busybox and gplviolations.org with the kernel.
2. We need the ability to relicense. This is a bit blunted by the FSF promise only to relicense to something substantially in the spirit of GPL. As long as they only accept code under GPLv2 or later *and* the new licence can be called GPLvN (because it's in the spirit), then there's no issue.
3. We need to be the controlling entity deciding on enforcement (by the way, this means that by signing the FSF assignment, the developer gives up any interest they had in enforcing the licence to their own code). This is fine and dandy in a big brother knows best kind of way, but I rather prefer a world where control is decentralised and individuals are empowered to call corporations on the use of their code (this is what gplviolations.org does; in the FSF we own it all world view, they wouldn't be able to function).

So I still don't have a convincing argument for why the FSF should continue to insist on assignments. If there's no good reason to do it, perhaps it's time to stop?

I do have a good one for why they shouldn't: Every company I go to to persuade them to eliminate their assignment policy always whines "but the FSF does it". Bradley's blog post (http://www.ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2010/02/01/copyright-not-al...) while true, essentially amounts to telling the company that the FSF isn't evil and they are, which isn't exactly helpful. It would be far more powerful to be able to turn up with the unified message from the entire Free and Open Source ecosystems that copyright assignments are wrong. While the FSF fails to be on board with this, and worse still appears to condone it, the damage to the ecosystem done by corporations seeking to make balance sheet assets of community code gets more and more substantial.

LPC: Michael Meeks on LibreOffice and code ownership

spaetz — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 19:48:56 +0000

no seriously. bsd gives any party equal rights to the code. ca gives only the priviledged party said rights. Imagine Mysql had been under the bsd rather than CA. The former owner would now have the right to still use it in any way he wants. Now the copyright rests with oracle and he whines, err, complains that he can't use his code anymore. That's quite a difference.

LPC: Michael Meeks on LibreOffice and code ownership

spaetz — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 19:42:45 +0000

The former is more complex making lawyers happy (and busy)

LPC: Michael Meeks on LibreOffice and code ownership

khc — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 19:38:27 +0000

What's the difference between copyright assignment and something like BSD?

Copyright Assignment Meh

jspaleta — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 18:42:25 +0000

Indeed even has contributors to a GPL or proprietary licensed codebase, as an individual contributor you can offer your contributions under a more liberal license such as BSD and a project should be able to accept them even if they don't require copyright assignment. If your personal politics are such that the terms of the GPL( or proprietary licensing) are too restrictive for you, then you are still free to offer your original work under a more expansive license such as the BSD and a GPL( or proprietary) project can consume those contributions without issue even in situations where they later feel a re-license is necessary. BSD licensed contributions should present no insurmountable problems even in a re-licensing situation.

-jef

Copyright Assignment Meh

nye — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 17:36:33 +0000

>I care that they *can* get all those freedoms for that source code - they might need to get it from somewhere else though

They can get all of those freedoms if the code is released under a BSD license, so why choose the GPL in the first place if you don't care about the copyleft terms that the GPL adds?

xemacs, yeh

coriordan — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 15:39:03 +0000

Maybe. It was 2006 when I last looked at the project, and back then the lists I checked had been mostly spam for two years. Looks like they cleaned them up alright and got some discussion going at least.

LPC: Michael Meeks on LibreOffice and code ownership

PO8 — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 08:23:46 +0000

I asked specifically for (US) open source case law because, until there is some, the matter is far from definitively settled. I thought maybe there was some I didn't know about.

I know quite competent IP attorneys who believe that the potential plaintiffs in the actions you cite fail to have a sufficient interest in the work in question to have standing. Enforcement of shared copyright in fields other than software has typically required a written agreement among collaborators as to (at least) who has joint ownership.

Since so few open source cases have been tried in the US, it is easy for people to say what the courts would do. In point of fact, nobody knows for sure what they will do until they are actually asked to do something. I think the case history in Jacobsen shows how far wrong our prognosticators can go in the absence of feedback; I don't know of anyone who predicted any of that mess accurately in advance.

Copyright assignment is a pretty blunt tool for assuring standing, and I'm not particularly in favor of it. However, while IANAL, I can see that from an attorney's point of view it would be a pretty attractive way to ensure that courts didn't spring any surprises. Attorneys are mostly payed to reduce risk, so…

xemacs, yeh

mbanck — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 08:07:36 +0000

If that happens, I am also pretty sure RedHat et al. will pull an X.Org on the FSF and fork GNU at GPLv3 or whichever was the last reasonable one.

Copyright Assignment Meh

kripkenstein — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 06:42:24 +0000

> But they don't get those freedoms on the same program then.

Ok, fine, then we basically agree on all the facts. We're just confusing ourselves with language.

I care that they *can* get all those freedoms for that source code - they might need to get it from somewhere else though. You care about getting those freedoms for the actual program they receive. Neither of us is right or wrong, just different focus.

> Please don't take this the wrong way, but perhaps you are not familiar with the concept of copyleft?

Actually I've been advocating for copyleft, and writing copylefted code, for quite a long time now :)

Copyright Assignment Meh

martinfick — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 06:23:27 +0000

> I don't follow. What are B,C,D here? As I understand it, if they get the GPL source from someplace else, they get all the freedoms of the GPL with that source - what is the mising B,C,D?

But they don't get those freedoms on the same program then. If they are given program P under a proprietery license (program P is a modified version of program Q which I distribute), which includes the code I released under the GPL, and they get the source to program Q under the GPL from somewhere else, it does not mean that they get the freedoms of the GPL for program P (since program P is different from Q).

The missing B, C, D could be anything that is covered by the GPL. If I had to assign them each an important missing freedom, I would note B as: the right to modify program P (as I already pointed out in my example), also I would note C as: the right to the source of program P, and D as: the right to redistribute program P. If B, C, D and are restricted by the proprietary relicense of program P, the receiver will not get those freedoms on P, they will only get them on Q.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but perhaps you are not familiar with the concept of copyleft? I would suggest reading these pages, perhaps they will clarify some things that I am attempting (poorly I guess) to convey:

http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/copyleft.html
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/quick-guide-gplv3.html

Copyright Assignment Meh

kripkenstein — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 05:21:01 +0000

> Perhaps they could get it somewhere else (assuming they even know that they can, and that it is still available somewhere else), but that only addresses some of the freedoms that the GPL gives, non copyleft covered ones. You are not addressing all of the freedoms, yet you claim you that they can all be addressed. I am saying "you cannot get B, C, and D", and you keep replying: "yes you can, you can get A!"

I don't follow. What are B,C,D here? As I understand it, if they get the GPL source from someplace else, they get all the freedoms of the GPL with that source - what is the mising B,C,D?

Copyright Assignment Meh

martinfick — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 05:09:06 +0000

> They can still get the GPLed code that you wrote, from a different source - the FOSS version of it from that same company selling the proprietary version, or from you, or from a fork that is 100% FOSS, etc. The GPL precisely makes that possible.

Perhaps they could get it somewhere else (assuming they even know that they can, and that it is still available somewhere else), but that only addresses some of the freedoms that the GPL gives, non copyleft covered ones. You are not addressing all of the freedoms, yet you claim you that they can all be addressed. I am saying "you cannot get B, C, and D", and you keep replying: "yes you can, you can get A!"

>> But, if someone wants their code to be GPL, but *doesn't* mind additional uses of it, then they would be fine with copyright assignment.
> As I already explained, it's useful for switching FOSS licenses. For example, it is currently essentially impossible to switch the Linux kernel to GPL3 from GPL2. I think FOSS communities need to change licenses sometimes, and copyright assignment makes that possible.

I tought that you were making a blanket statement about not minding any kind of additonal uses. Yes, for some very specific additional uses, not ones left to the discretion of the assignee, I can see how this will likely seem useful to some.

> I see the validity in your position too. I just happen to disagree. I hope you feel the same way.

No, not at all. I am not judging your position ethically, I am judging it logically, and I am claiming that it is simply not valid (the position about all the GPL freedoms being preserved).

Copyright Assignment Meh

kripkenstein — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 04:33:30 +0000

> A simple example would be: if they combined my submitted code with proprietary code and distributed it disallowing modifications. The receivers of that software would not have the legal ability to modify the resultant work (not even the sections which I contributed), they would have lost that particular GPL assured freedom.

They can still get the GPLed code that you wrote, from a different source - the FOSS version of it from that same company selling the proprietary version, or from you, or from a fork that is 100% FOSS, etc. The GPL precisely makes that possible.

> Obvisouly, they may do so, there just doesn't seem to be any incentive to do so. Can you suggest one?

As I already explained, it's useful for switching FOSS licenses. For example, it is currently essentially impossible to switch the Linux kernel to GPL3 from GPL2. I think FOSS communities need to change licenses sometimes, and copyright assignment makes that possible.

I see the validity in your position too. I just happen to disagree. I hope you feel the same way.

Copyright Assignment Meh

martinfick — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 03:23:55 +0000

> However, you don't need to be 'ok with the BSD' to be ok with this. Your code, with copyright assignment, is still GPLed. It just has another license. That doesn't take away the freedoms of the GPL, it just allows other people - that prefer to do so - to get it under that other license.

No, this is false, it could take away the freedoms of the GPL (the freedom which the GPL assures). What makes you believe that this cannot be the case? What would guarantee that this would not be the case?

If I write code and submit it to a project with copyright assignment, and they chose to release my code with a non free license, receivers of that code may, or may not benefit from the freedoms which I want them to benefit from, freedoms which the GPL assures them. There are many situations where this could be the case. A simple example would be: if they combined my submitted code with proprietary code and distributed it disallowing modifications. The receivers of that software would not have the legal ability to modify the resultant work (not even the sections which I contributed), they would have lost that particular GPL assured freedom.

> But, if someone wants their code to be GPL, but *doesn't* mind additional uses of it, then they would be fine with copyright assignment.

This is true. But it seems unlikely that someone would take that stance, since there would then be no additional benefits of the GPL over the BSD license then. It is extra effort to chose the GPL, why would somone chose it only to have it be subverted? Obvisouly, they may do so, there just doesn't seem to be any incentive to do so. Can you suggest one?

Copyright Assignment Meh

kripkenstein — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 02:28:09 +0000

> This makes sense if you would be OK normally releasing your code as BSD, but not if you would instead chose only the GPL (or only another copyleft license). Surely you should be able to see how this would potentially be unacceptable to those who want their code to be protected by the GPL?

Of course, I respect your opinion even if I disagree with it, and I see the logic in it.

However, you don't need to be 'ok with the BSD' to be ok with this. Your code, with copyright assignment, is still GPLed. It just has another license. That doesn't take away the freedoms of the GPL, it just allows other people - that prefer to do so - to get it under that other license.

Again, I respect your opinion. If you want your code to always be GPLed, and never available under any other circumstances, then I can see how copyright assignment is not for you. But, if someone wants their code to be GPL, but *doesn't* mind additional uses of it, then they would be fine with copyright assignment.

All of these are legitimate positions to take, I hope we can agree on that.

Copyright Assignment Meh

martinfick — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 00:43:16 +0000

> In other words, it allows those that do not like copyright assignment to always get to where they want to be.

No, it does not allow them to ensure that their code is always copylefted, if that is their desire.

> If we really believe in our FOSS licenses - and we should, otherwise why use them - then they will preseve our freedoms in both copyright assignment projects or in non-copyright assignment projects. To say that there is something non-free or evil or wrong about copyright assignment projects, seems to imply that our FOSS licenses are deficient, if they cannot guarantee our freedoms.

This is flawed logic. Licenses can only affect (preserve freedoms) on code which falls under that license. Copyright assignment allows this code to potentially be relicensed under an entirely different license, this says nothing of the original license.

> But I wouldn't stop myself from contributing to a project that does have it, or prefer one project over another because of it. It doesn't matter to me, as long as both projects use an open source license. That's the important part, not copyright assignment.

This makes sense if you would be OK normally releasing your code as BSD, but not if you would instead chose only the GPL (or only another copyleft license). Surely you should be able to see how this would potentially be unacceptable to those who want their code to be protected by the GPL?

Copyright Assignment Meh

kripkenstein — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 23:16:08 +0000

> You only need copyright assignment for one single reason, and that's to create and sell something that contains my code but is not bound by the license.

To be fair, there are other reasons, such as keeping open the option to switch FOSS licenses down the road. I'm not saying this is the most common reason or important one - I think you are right that the commercial aspect is usually dominant in the relevant projects.

> I, as a lowly contributor, may not do that. Only the assignee can. That's a fundamental inequality, and it cannot be fixed by forking.

By forking, you take away their capability to do that - with new code in your fork. In time, your fork may become the dominant one, and you will have essentially converted the old copyright assignment project into one without copyright assignment. Exactly this may happen with MySQL and OpenOffice.

So I would say, yes, the problem you are concerned with *can* be fixed by forking, and FOSS licenses are designed exactly to allow such fixing. If they could not fix in such a way, they could not guarantee our freedoms.

LPC: Michael Meeks on LibreOffice and code ownership

Hanno — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 22:30:56 +0000

Prior to panicking, I'd like to know more details about this unnamed threat, as well.

Copyright Assignment Meh

smurf — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 22:00:24 +0000

_You_ may not see a problem when Some Company uses your code in ways that are not covered by the license you and I are operating under.

However, _I_ surely do. The Free Software movement is based on equality. I get your code and can modify and enhance it, you get to do the same thing with mine, and thereby we all benefit. That's the key reason why the GPL exists.

You only need copyright assignment for one single reason, and that's to create and sell something that contains my code but is not bound by the license. I, as a lowly contributor, may not do that. Only the assignee can. That's a fundamental inequality, and it cannot be fixed by forking.

Bottom line: I will not sign such an agreement.

LPC: Michael Meeks on LibreOffice and code ownership

cyd — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 21:52:49 +0000

You're forgetting the FSF, which tends to settle out of court.

LPC: Michael Meeks on LibreOffice and code ownership

oever — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 21:38:40 +0000

The grunt of the code is interacting with the browser DOM and the speed there is limited by the browser. But there are a few areas where numerical speed is useful. WebODF does unzipping of the document in the browser. This is not a performance problem for regular documents. But for documents with more then a hundred pages, a speedup might be noticable. Perhaps you can speed up the javascript inflate and deflate functions.

Tentacles of Evil

boog — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 21:03:09 +0000

This argument has long been formalised by Debian as the "Tentacles of Evil Test", which seems quite relevant and foresighted these days.

http://people.debian.org/~bap/dfsg-faq.html (see Q9c)

(As others have noted, the case of the FSF is more subtle; I'm not trying to imply they fail the test.)

Copyright Assignment Meh

kripkenstein — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 20:58:04 +0000

I fully agree with a lot of the criticism about copyright assignment - it adds beaurocracy, suit involvement, and all that. However, aside from that additional overhead, it isn't intrinsically evil - which can easily be seen from the fact that projects with copyright assignment can be forked into ones without such assignment. In other words, it allows those that do not like copyright assignment to always get to where they want to be.

And this is the part of the criciticm of copyright assignment that I don't get. If we really believe in our FOSS licenses - and we should, otherwise why use them - then they will preseve our freedoms in both copyright assignment projects or in non-copyright assignment projects. To say that there is something non-free or evil or wrong about copyright assignment projects, seems to imply that our FOSS licenses are deficient, if they cannot guarantee our freedoms.

But, they can and they do, as we can see from the possibility of forks, and examples of them.

Again, I don't care for copyright assignment myself - it just adds overhead. But I wouldn't stop myself from contributing to a project that does have it, or prefer one project over another because of it. It doesn't matter to me, as long as both projects use an open source license. That's the important part, not copyright assignment.

The only real difference with copyright assignment is that it allows the person getting the copyrights to offer *additional* licenses. Typically this is used to offer commercial/nonfree licenses, like Qt and MySQL do. I see no problem with a company making money in this way. It seems though that a lot of the anti-copyright assignment criticism stems from a distaste of such things. But making money is not antithetical to FOSS, in this context (as often mentioned, you can sell GPL software, odd as it sounds to people that are new to FOSS).

OTOH I do see a big advantage in being able to change FOSS licenses later on. If the vast majority of a community would like to change the FOSS license their project uses, they should be able to (it should take a special majority - just like changing the constitution of a country requires a special majority). Copyright assignment makes that possible. But again, this isn't a big enough of a deal that I would prefer copyright assignment over the lack of it.

LPC: Michael Meeks on LibreOffice and code ownership

jengelh — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 20:53:03 +0000

Looking at the commit statistics for drivers/ however looks like they're the backlight in carbon savings. Hooray for standard interfaces like PIIX, AHCI, AC97 and HDA.

LPC: Michael Meeks on LibreOffice and code ownership

daglwn — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 20:44:24 +0000

I can't think of a company with any motive to do so, across open source projects?

Apple effectively requires copyright assignment for the LLVM/Clang suite, though no one really follows it. Since the license is BSD-ish, there's no real practical difference anyway. Apple does have a rather aggressive campaign against GPLv3.

LPC: Michael Meeks on LibreOffice and code ownership

kripkenstein — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 20:41:27 +0000

You should be able to reuse ODF-processing C++ code on the web, using Emscripten, which will compile C++ to JavaScript (through LLVM). Maybe this could be useful for WebODF? If so I'd be happy to help out!

http://emscripten.org

Disclaimer: I'm the main Emscripten dev.

LPC: Michael Meeks on LibreOffice and code ownership

msnitzer — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 20:11:48 +0000

Please see: Canonical's contributor agreement (aka comprehensive copyright assignment). What could be a better first step toward making amazing contributions to Ubuntu!? ;)

xemacs, yeh

rahulsundaram — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 19:39:16 +0000

FSF agreements may not be perfect but unlike Oracle, FSF has a counter promise in a legally binding contract and that is a MUCH better situation to be in. It is not the same thing at all. People cannot use FSF to justify draconian agreements.

xemacs, yeh

dlang — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 19:03:43 +0000

RMS is not going to direct the FSF forever (if for no other reason than he won't live forever)

given that it is up to the FSF to decide what new license 'is in the same spirit' as the existing license, the controls around it are pretty limited. some people consider the GPLv3 to be a violation of the spirit of GPLv2

if nothing else, the Oracle misbehavior should point out to everyone that you shouldn't be focusng on the orginization you are signing things over to today, you should be concerned about what it may be years from now when it is purchased by (or merges with in the case of non-company orgnizations) some other organization.