[OSGeo-Discuss] role of foundation with regard to licensing

[Alex Mandel]

Tim Schaub wrote:
> Hey-
> 
> Not sure if this is well understood or has been covered here before. I'm
> curious about the role of the foundation in licensing code for
> distribution.
> 
> If an OSGeo project assigns copyright to OSGeo, I imagine it is OSGeo
> that ultimately makes the decision on how to license the code for
> distribution.  I'm not sure *who* exactly OSGeo is in this context.
> 
> The incubation process ensures that code "is under an OSI approved
> license" [1].  I haven't seen any other information on who makes
> decisions about (re)licensing the code after incubation - and I'm
> interested only in the case where OSGeo holds copyright.
> 
> Without knowing any of the legal details, what I would like to see is
> some arrangement by which the Project Steering Committee for a
> particular project becomes part of the foundation in some way, so that
> the PSC has the responsibility of making licensing decisions for the
> project.  I imagine this would happen with some constraints from the
> foundation (e.g. OSI approved licenses only)
> 
> I know that in practice, this is probably the way things already are.
> Why rock the boat?  Why assign copyright to OSGeo in the first place [2]?
> 
> Tim
> 
> [1] http://www.osgeo.org/incubator/process/evaluation.html
> [2] My answer would include "because it gives legal status to the PSC
> that allows it to make licensing decisions for the project."
> 

That does seem to be the process, it's seems the decision ultimately is
in the project's hand (PSC) within the guidelines. I'm not sure a
project could pass incubation without an OSI approved license (Seems
like an OSGeo board vote controls that.)

As for the why, I believe it has to do with the fact the OSGeo is
incorporated and considered a longer term stable foundation partly
created to protect the rights of it's projects. Many of the projects do
not have their own foundations, and so copyright might be assigned to a
group of the original coders or something, that could cause legal issues
down the line as OSGeo would have no standing in court (ability to
represent) if legal action every needed to happen on behalf of a project.

It also provides us a mandate to seek non-profit status since one of our
primary functions would be to protect the copyrights and open source
status of our projects in the public interest.

Alex
Standard I am not a lawyer exception...