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

Hamish hamish_nospam at yahoo.com
Wed Mar 8 04:29:15 EST 2006


> > 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.

I see your point. Maybe we should look at incorporating "GRASS
Development Team" as a non-profit organization. It takes time but isn't
all that hard to do.

> 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.

I think the trust issue will disappear with time as the foundation gets
established. e.g. I don't think folks would think twice about assigning
copyright to the FSF or GNU foundation today if that is what they wanted
to do with their code. The "distance" from the board to the devels on
the ground may not disappear with time, and that worries me -- if the
"shareholder rights" are not clear, people may not contribute.

Assigning co-copyright to yourself & to the mothership is probably a
good idea for any developer. i.e. both parties are free to do with the
code (relicense or reuse) as they please. - I take it if co-copyright
is assigned one party doesn't need the permission of the other to do
whatever it is they want to do with it?


> > 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,

as far as I see it, having commit rights restricted to those who have
signed a legal contract does two things:

1) makes managers at corps & govts happy that their "mission critical"
software has controlled entry points, procedures, and chain of command.
In reality I don't think it improves the quality or reduces the chances
of backdoors, but it means the foundation's customers can tick the
no-hippy box when trying to certify their production chain to their
internal auditors.

2) It deflects a large amount of the liability from the foundation to
the developer. The project is protected, but my house isn't, and I can't
expect that the OSGeo or FSF lawyers will come to my defense, even in
the case of a no-fault submarine patent suit. The CLA creates a paper 
trail which focuses the blame. Item #5 should be manageable, but item #4
is harder unless everyone has a contract lawyer when they start their
job, submarine patents, etc...

I don't really care about (1) but am willing to do a minimum amount of
work to comply with the needs of large organizations. I do care about (2).


> 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.

There is a balance point between "interest in contributing" and "signing
away your rights". I think for many part-time devels, the interest has
little mass; the software becomes a great pile of code created from
millions of little feather patches - to strech an analogy.

I see signing the agreement benefiting the developer in the sense that
it may accelerate the development of the software by bringing in new
corporate and government users. eg Agreeing to give up your right to
drive on whichever side of the road you please in return for the freedom
to comfortably drive at speed without worry of a head-on collision.
The question is: do the perceived benefits outweigh the perceived
costs..?

Also, I think it is unrealistic to expect a couple of signed-on gate
keepers to QA all the incoming code, especially in the case of GRASS.
There is just too much to understand & review.


> 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.

None the less a very real possibility we should protect ourselves from.
I don't want us to be the test case.


regards,
Hamish




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