Hello,

There are three main topics for this status report:

1. The Next Bacula Release
2. The Bacula Conference
3. Proposed Source Code License Modification

1. The Next Bacula Release
The next Bacula release will be officially announced at the Bacula Conference on the 21st of March, but I want to let you know that I have finished the work of backporting the Enterprise changes made over the last year to this new release.  Normally, as was the case in 2012, those changes would have been integrated into a number of smaller releases.  In 2012, we had 5 released, and would would have had a similar number in 2013, but as you know I froze the releases until I understood the consequences of the fork.  Actually, 5 releases is probably too many, and waiting a year as is the current case is probably too few, so in the future, hopefully we can come closer to a release every six months which I consider appropriate for stable backup software such as Bacula.  This release is rather large with a number of new features.  The git diff is close to 60,000 lines of code, which probably represents in reality some 20-30 thousand lines of changes, so you can see that the Bacula project is far from being dead as some “highly exaggerated rumors” would have it.

2. The Bacula Conference
I am surprised but very please to see how many of you have signed up for the Bacula Conference — thanks, I look forward to seeing you or meeting you as the case may be there.  There are still places available, and if you can come, please do so.  It is being held in Berlin with a dinner offered by Bacula Systems in the evening of 20 March and the conference will take place on the 21st of March.  For more information, please see:

  http://www.baculaconference.org

3. Proposed Source Code License Modification
I am considering to modify the Bacula Source License to have one additional “restriction” that would require forks to maintain the attributions. The code will remain AGPLv3 as it currently is, but the new restriction, which is permitted under section 7(b) would be added. At the same time, I propose modifying the header files to include a mention of this restriction.  The main new wording in the LICENSE file would be the following:

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Redistribution’s/Modifications:
1. Redistribution’s and/or modifications of the source code must retain the information including the copyright notices and the attributions that are between the BEGIN_LICENSE and END_LICENSE markers.

2. Redistribution’s and/or modifications of the source code and/or binaries must reproduce the files LICENSE and AUTHORS in the the redistribution and/or in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

Forking:
The two points listed above are not meant to restrict your ability to use, modify, and redistribute or fork Bacula, but are considered by the main author of Bacula to be an essential part of the moral author’s rights (droits d’auteur; Urheberrecht) that permit certain non-alienable author’s rights such as the right to be identified as the author or authors of the work as defined in article 6bis, Berne Convention.

If you have previously forked Bacula and have not followed the above two fundamental points, you must make your fork confirm to them in its entirety prior to using any file or part thereof from this or later releases.
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If you have comments or questions about this proposed change, please feel free to contact me via the Bacula email lists or directly:  kern at sibbald dot com.

Best regards,
Kern