[Board] The geotools license agenda item

[Seven (aka Arnulf)]

On 08/09/2012 02:58 PM, Jody Garnett wrote:
>> Motion:
>> The board confirms that (verbatim copy from the CLA): "The Foundation
>> grants the Contributor the non­exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable,
>> worldwide, royalty­free, license to use, copy, prepare derivative works
>> of, publicly display or perform, and distribute the Submission (1)."
>> This includes relicensing their own contributions under another license.
> I am afraid the very next line in section "V. Obligations of the
> Foundation" specially covers changing license as a board responsibility,
> made in conjunction with the group governing the project. There are a
> couple of restrictions, open source license, in accordance with the
> bylaws of the Foundation etc…

Yes, but this refers to the relicensing of the code that is produced
since then. We cannot take away the right of the contributor over his or
her own code before the CLA was signed. And we will not take away the
code even now. When you produce code tomorrow within the GeoTOols
project and in a week's time want to relicense it under the BSD, fine,
off you go. Very simple. And the prior is what is being asked for.

The next section in our CLA refers to a relicense happening under the
ownership of the Foundation. If the OSGeo board was to relicense
GeoTools code in the current version under another license, then the PSC
would have to be d'accord.

Cheers,
Arnulf

> Still here is the complete block of text (in case my reading of it is
> incorrect):
>> V. Obligations of the Foundation
>>
>> The Foundation hereby grants the Contributor the non­exclusive,
>> perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty­free, license to use, copy,
>> prepare derivative works of, publicly display or perform, and
>> distribute the Submission.
>>
>> In the event the Foundation makes the Submission available to third
>> parties, it shall do so only in accordance with the requirements of
>> the by­laws of the Foundation, currently hosted at
>> http://www.osgeo.org/content/foundation/incorporation/bylaws.html. In
>> particular, the portions of the Submission integrated to the core
>> library will be licensed to the third party under a license approved
>> as an open source license by the Open Source Initiative, or any
>> substantially similar license that meets the Open Source Definition or
>> Free Software Definition. The specific license used will be chosen in
>> suitable consultation with the group governing the Project. The
>> portions of the Submission integrated to the Geotools documentation,
>> web site, or other ancillary portions of the Geotools project may be
>> licensed to the third party under any license with suitable terms for
>> such material, including without limitation the GNU Free Documentation
>> License or the Berkeley Software Distribution license. The portions of
>> the Submission integrated into the code tutorials may be licensed to
>> the third party under terms with fewer restrictions including without
>> limitation placing the tutorial code into the public domain.
>>
>> The Contributor understands that the decision to include the
>> Submission in the Project is entirely that of the Foundation, and the
>> Foundation will not be obligated to make the Submission available as
>> part of the Project. The Foundation acknowledges that, except as
>> explicitly described in this Agreement, the Submission is provided on
>> an “AS IS” BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, EITHER
>> EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY WARRANTIES OR
>> CONDITIONS OF TITLE, NON­ INFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY, OR FITNESS
>> FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
> 
> Jody
> 
>  
> 


-- 
Seven of Nine
http://arnulf.us/Seven
Exploring Body, Space and Mind