IP Review of DB2

[Jody Garnett]

Thanks for the feedback David,

The section you refer to is correct, but the specifics are under code 
conventions where the headers needed is written down. I am 2/3 of the 
way through and have been able to resolve most of the (C) issues so far 
during my IP check, hense the special attention for you :-)

With respect to assigning (C) if it is in doubt, lets wait until OSGEO 
holds the code, so IBM can have a nice time supporting OSGEO publicly 
shall we? GeoTools is just happy to have you hack after all...

Thanks for following this up, if any further developments are of 
interest can you CC the incubator at incubator.osgeo.org list (or I suppose 
I can as GT representative).

Cheers.
Jody

> Hi Jody,
>
> I've found my old note exchanges with the IBM lawyers about the 
> copyright notice that we were going to be using but don't know that we 
> actually had any communication with the GeoTools PMC in this regard.  
> At the time, I thought I had seen copyright notices for a number of 
> different contributors and didn't think ours was out of order.
>
> When you say the developers guide is clear on the header for the 
> library code, are you referring to 
> http://docs.codehaus.org/display/GEOT/1.4+Source+License or something 
> different?  Our attorneys were wondering if we signed any code 
> contribution agreement with the GeoTools PMC at the time but I don't 
> think this exists.
>
> Any way, it seems like we can assign copyright if it makes business 
> sense to IBM.  I am still pursuing this with our attorneys and open 
> source staff.  I don't have a problem with doing this.  (I also 
> vaguely call an internal issue that if we wrote the code, someone else 
> broke it and there was a problem, we could somehow be liable - but I 
> don't know if this is actually a problem)
>
> David
>
> At 08:39 AM 7/9/2006, you wrote:
>> I have included a review.txt file in your DB2 module, I noticed that 
>> all headers are marked as (C) Copyright IBM Corporation, 2005. All 
>> rights reserved.
>>
>> Is this code something you wish the geotools community to take 
>> responsibility for distributing? "All rights reserved" may prove 
>> interesting for that ....
>>
>> I am unsure if the GeoTools PMC requires assignment of copyright or 
>> not? The developers guide is fairly clear on the header used for 
>> library code, but perhaps something was negotiated with James when I 
>> was not paying attention. If so we need to update the developers 
>> guide ...
>>
>> On the pragmatic side the only reasons I can think to address this is 
>> if the GeoTools PMC wants to either relicense, or assign copyright to 
>> others. We are considering assigning the copyright to the OSGEO 
>> Foundation, and you have mentioned that you may prefer a different 
>> license in the past. Mentioned in the review.txt is the possibility 
>> of IBM donating the code/copyright to OSGEO formally for a bit of PR 
>> as geotools works through incubation.
>>
>> From my perspective the code is compatible in license, and I am 
>> fairly content. As long as all content is under the same license as a 
>> courtesy
>> to library users. I do not wish users of the geotools library to 
>> negotiate several licenses if we can avoid it.
>>
>> Thanks also for making a stub jar so that we can seamless included 
>> DB2 in our build and release cycles.
>>
>> We will need to explore the answers to the above questions in the 
>> next couple months. I would like to have a game plan in place and the 
>> GeoTools library moving along in through incubation, before chatting 
>> face to face with other in OSGEO during FOSS4G in September.
>>
>> Jody
>>
>>
>
>