[Incubator] Copyright held by non-legal entities

[rich at richsteele.org]

Quoting Frank Warmerdam <warmerdam at pobox.com>:

> Rich,
>
> Currently most of the Geotools code has the copyright held by the
> "Geotools PMC", which has no legal existence as far as I know.  How
> much of a problem is this likely to be?

A non-entity can't hold copyright, so the copyright is still vested in  
the individual creators of the code.  Did prior creators sign a  
purported copyright assignment to the "Geotools PMC"?
>
> The Geotools folks seem to be willing to assign copyright currently held
> by the Geotools PMC to OSGeo.  If we wanted to make that occur, do you have
> any suggested approach?  Perhaps an assignment letter signed by all current
> members of the PMC, and as many previous members/contributors as can be
> easily contacted?

Are we talking about an actual assignment of the copyright to OSGeo,  
or simply a license?  Either way, the PMC members and previous  
members/contributors should sign a copyright assignment form or a  
broad license agreement (ie., the contributor agreement)

>
> 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    | President OSGF, http://osgeo.org
>
>
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