[Board] a long story starting with SOAP and ending in Switzerland

[Frank Warmerdam]

Jo Walsh wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 10, 2007 at 02:34:48PM -0400, Frank Warmerdam wrote:
>>  o Work for JRC and other european initiatives should keep the IP held by
>>    consulting/contracting organizations that implement the changes. 
>>    Presumably European companies.
> 
> But what do we mean by "keep the IP"?
> Project contributors sign a CLA assigning code copyright to OSGeo.
> How can one "keep" contributions to open source software?

Jo,

First, let me say I hate the term "Contributor Level Agreement" or CLA
as there are many sorts of CLAs.  I'm in the habit of only using this
term for the style of CLA proposed by Rich and currently used by
MapGuide.  But it seems to be applied quite widely making it hard to
know what is being discussed.

In the context of GeoTools it is proposed that the contributors
assign their copyright to the foundation.  I'm suggesting that the
GeoTools project allow some contributors to not do so where it would
be a barrier to their participation.  So some contributors would license
their contributions under the LGPL but would retain the copyright.

Merging two emails:

Jo Walsh wrote:
 > On Tue, Jul 10, 2007 at 02:34:48PM -0400, Frank Warmerdam wrote:
 >> working group, where I gather there will be additional efforts to naildown
 >> SOAP support in WCS 1.2.  I'd love to see SOAP support implemented for
 >> MapServer by some European individual/group with JRC funding.
 >
 > Okay, so one would want to swing this as a "Cross-project sponsorship".
 > And make sure that as well as the server-side support, there is
 > backing for the client programs to implement SOAP client support.
 > Possibly to extend this beyond what are officially Foundation
 > projects, even. Everything with an OGC W*S would be in scope.

I'm not suggesting the funding would be handled by OSGeo at all.  Instead
I'm assuming JRC would contract some organization (like CampToCamp,
the Where Group or any number of other european companies) to do the
development.  It might even be a consortium of such organizations if
appropriate, to cover several projects (ie. GeoServer, MapServer,
MapGuide, ...)

I think sponsorships through OSGeo are *one* approach to getting
project work done - especially background maintenance.  But the primary
means that work gets done now, and no doubt in the future, is by user
organizations contracting with contracting organizations.  Either
individuals, like me, or companies like DMSG, etc.  I don't think OSGeo
ought to try and insert itself into these arrangements other than to
ensure that the projects themselves are not unduely dominated by any
one organization.  That is, to ensure that different organizations have
a level playing field for such business.

Best regards,
-- 
---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | President OSGeo, http://osgeo.org