[OSGeo-Discuss] Incubation Committee / Contributor Agreements

[Rich Steele]

Frank Warmerdam wrote:
> 
> Cameron Shorter wrote:
> > The first thing we are going to need to do is contact all our
developers
> > and ask them to assign copywrite.  What would be good is a plain
English
> > description of the license and the reason for it which we can all
use.
> 
> Cameron,
> 
> While copyright assignment may be desirable it is not strictly
necessary.
> As I understand it most projects will not be pursuing copyright
assignment
> to the foundation.
> 
> Perhaps you thought the committer agreement was copyright assignment?
It
> isn't, but instead is sort of like granting the foundation a license
to
> redistribute the work.
> 
> I think Rich is going to prepare a plain english description of the
> purpose of the contributor agreement.

I have posted an FAQ to cover these and some of the other questions I'm
anticipating about the contributor agreement.  See:
http://www.fossgis.de/osgeo/index.php/Contributor_Agreement
 
> > Secondly, I'm not sure what we do about libraries we import into our
> > code.  Do we need the library developers to sign the same copywrite
> forms?
> 
> As part of the incubation process it is necessary to identify external
> libraries, and their licenses.  I don't anticipate any need for
library
> developers to sign any contributor agreements.  Some effort may need
to be
> taken (in a LICENSE.TXT for instance) to clarify what code comes from
> where.
> 
> The incubation committee (in consultation with Rich or other IP review
> experts) needs to come up with a more detailed process on this.

Where libraries are imported from other open source projects, it should
not be necessary for the library developers to sign the contributor
agreement.  However, these third party code dependencies will need to be
identified and the relevant project PSC will need to evaluate whether
non-OSGeo code can and should be added to the project.  This evaluation
would need to consider not only whether creating such dependencies is
warranted, but also whether the license terms are compatible.  This
inquiry is relevant not only to projects in incubation, but also ongoing
project management once a project is admitted to the foundation.

-Rich