[Board] GeoTools Copyright Assignment

[Arnulf Christl]

Hi,
if you read http://docs.codehaus.org/display/GEOTOOLS/Geotools+Legal+Review you will have found some open questions. I believe that they have all been answered but the last one (which I don't get). 

* How will OSGeo handle institutions who waive their right to retain copyright and permit a contributor to add to an OSGeo project without formally granting OSGeo a copy or licensing right?

This question is obsolete as the LGPL license gives OSGeo all rights to redistribute the code regardless of whether the contributor has explicitly granted that right to OSGeo or not. 

* How will OSGeo handle legal regimes where rights can only be granted over past contributions? Will yearly renewal documents for both the license agreement and copyright assignment documents be prepared as well?

All new code that is contributed to the project will automatically fall under the same license as the rest of the project. PSC (PMC, whatever) has to make sure that contributors only contribute clean code - just like it is now and with every other FOSS project. 

If the project has assigned the copyright to OSGeo then all new code contributed to the project will automatically also be under that copyright. 

* How will OSGeo handle minors who cannot, on their own, undertake any of these agreements?

What exactly does this want to ask? Is it "minors" as in under age? If code is contributed to a GPL'd project it is also GPL. Where is the difference? If there are currently minors who have contributed code to GeoTools and are not of age yet to sign an agreement that we might not even have to sign I suggest we wait until that minor has come of age. 

Regards, 
Arnulf.