[GRASS5] FWD: [OSGeo-Discuss] Incubation Committee / Contributor Agreements]

[Frank Warmerdam]

Hamish wrote:
  > I assign co-copyright of all my GRASS contributions to date to "the
> GRASS development team", meaning I agree that it is up to the team
> to decide what is best. If co-copyright on new code is assigned to
> OSGeo, how do I assert G.D.T. decisions have priority over OSGeo w.r.t.
> GRASS matters?

Hamish,

 From a legal point of view, assigning copyright to the "GRASS
Development Team" is a very questionable practice because there
is no such legal entity.  Someone could setup a legal corporation
named the "GRASS Development Team" and (arguable) assert copyright
control over such portions of GRASS.

Assigning copyright to the foundation would be one alternative,
and the foundation does have legal standing to own things.  However,
for the trust reasons you mention we can see that this might not
be appealing to everyone.  That is why we also allow people to
retain copyright ownership of the code as long as a clear right
to redistribute is provided.

> 2) I don't like signing things. Rousseau's social contract not
> withstanding, the benefit has to flow both ways. Am I concerned if a
> non-contributing corporation can get ISO9000 certification while
> depending on OSGeo software? Honestly?

I didn't really follow the ISO9000 point, but I can understand the
point about "what is the benefit to the developer?" in signing.  I
have to assume that you are starting with an interest in contributing
to GRASS.  If you do, then this becomes one of the requirements of
being a committer.

The agreement should be benefiting the developer in that is provides
a means for the foundation to have legal standing to defend against
legal attacks against GRASS.  Having to do this piecemeal as individual
developers would really suck.  However, I must admit this could seem
like a rather theoretical benefit since we have not seen much in the
way of legal threats in the OSGeo community to date.

Best regards,
-- 
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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    | President OSGF, http://osgeo.org