[Incubator] Transfering Code Copyright - restart

[rich at richsteele.org]

Quoting Frank Warmerdam <warmerdam at pobox.com>:

> Note, I am not suggesting it is enough for some committee to make this
> assignment.  I'm suggesting digging up all the original contributors
> that can be practically reached.  I understand that the copyright remains
> with the original contributors currently, and that they need to reassign
> it for it to be valid.

OK, that is my understanding too.

> Are you suggesting we need to know with some degree of precision what
> parts of the code came from who?  Or just that we need to get assignment
> for all the original contributors?

If you can get all of the original contributors, then you wouldn't  
need to identify specific parts of the code since you would get  
blanket assignments from each developer covering the entire spectrum  
of contributions, all of which taken together would form the whole.   
However, if you can only get, say, 70% of the developers who  
contributed to a project, then you would need to take a hard look at  
what that other 30% contributed.  Does the foundation have sufficient  
rights to that code under some license? Did the contributor have the  
right to contribute the code?  was it his/her code or did he/she  
commit someone else's code?  Basically, we'll need to do some due  
diligence on the provenance of the code and determine whether it is  
kosher, "semi-kosher" and thus not likely to result in legal problems  
down the road, or problematic and thus probably should be  
removed/rewritten.

> Sorry, I was just attempting to come up with some precise way of
> describing what was being contributed.  If it is legally sufficient
> to say something like all code contributed in the past, and in the future
> as part of the GeoTools project, then that is far better.
>
> This is one example of where "I am not a lawyer" is dangerous. :-)
>
> I see the template assignment indicates "all past, present, and future
> computer code you have contributed, are contributing or will contribute
> to any OSGeo project."   This certainly seems quite broad and
> straight forward.   I like that I would just have to sign it once for
> any projects I'm involved in.
>
> I assume if a contributor wanted, they could alter the text to list
> only one project?

Yes, the form of copyright assignment I sent around is very broad, as  
it covers past and future contributions, and covers code contributed  
to ALL foundation projects.  For example, if you wanted to contribute  
your GDAL code, but nothing else, you could make it specific.  For  
other projects, you might have to sign a CLA if that PSC required it.   
Similarly, the GeoTools folks would probably want to limit their  
contribution to GeoTools code.  We can create different versions of  
the form if that is what is intended.

> It seems funny that even at that, if GeoTools "declared" GDAL part of
> it's project, all my copyright on GDAL code would then revert to
> OSGeo (if I had signed the assignment, even limited to GeoTools).

I'm not sure I follow, but I'm not sure how a third party group making  
a statement would affect copyright ownership.

>>> Once they have such a template letter, they can get people to start
>>> printing them, signing them, and mailing them to OSGeo for storage
>>> somewhere.
>>
>> Ah yes, "mailing them to OSGeo".  Do we have a PO box and an admin yet? :)
>
> For the time being I'd be willing to be a maildrop for code assignments.
> I'll pass them on to the ED for permanent storage as OSGeo legal documents
> when the ED is in place.

Frank is a very good guy!