[OSGeo-Discuss] copyright question

[Frank Warmerdam]

Bart van den Eijnden (OSGIS) wrote:
> Hi list,
> 
> today I was in a meeting about GeoExt, and the following question came up:
> 
> "Is it possible for OsGeo to take copyright for a project which yet has 
> to form and has not passed incubation as such?"
> 
> A commercial company has expressed issues contributing if the copyright 
> is not owned by a trustworthy independent organization such as OsGeo.
> 
> Is anybody able to answer this? TIA.

Bart (and Bob),

It isn't obvious to me that OSGeo has to do anything for you to assign
copyright to us.  So in that sense you could likely just force it on us.

However, my suggestion would be for you to request OSGeo to accept
code copyright by way of a letter to the board.  Alternatively, if
there is an existing OSGeo project to which the GeoExt project relates
somewhat closely, you might ask them to take it on under their project
governance.

To be legal in the USA we understand copyright assignment to require a
signed document.  There are some examples of assignment, and contributor
agreements available at:

   http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Incubation_Committee

Note that OSGeo holding the copyright doesn't generally mean we will
do much.  But for OSGeo projects our position has been that the code
must remain available under an open source license (OSI certified or
clearly equivelent to an OSI certified license).  We defer to the
project PSC on changes to the license (within those constraints).  We
are generally hesitant to take legal enforcement action against violators
of the license, preferring to resolve issues through negotiation and
education.

As a board member I'd be more supportive of taking on some responsibility
for a project (ie. holding code copyright) if I thought the project was
likely to go through the incubation process eventually.  And, once again,
I'd rather see an existing incubated project PSC take responsibility
rather than having to do it directly via the board if possible.

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    | Geospatial Programmer for Rent