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

[Glynn Clements]

Hamish wrote:

> > 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?

Hmm. I'm not sure what you mean by "co-copyright". For joint copyright
(multiple parties hold rights to different parts of a work), all use
requires the consent of all copyright holders.

It's probably easier to just have one copyright holder; if you want to
grant equal rights to another party, give them an unrestricted licence
(or sell them one for a nominal fee; a one-sided grant may be
revocable, whereas "mutual consideration" prevents this).

The standard FSF practice is to have the contributor assign sole
copyright to the FSF, in return for the FSF granting an unrestricted
licence back to the contributor. The advantage of this is that it
makes it easier for the FSF to litigate infringement cases if they are
the sole copyright holder rather than a licensee.

-- 
Glynn Clements <glynn at gclements.plus.com>