[Incubator] Transfering Code Copyright - restart

[Frank Warmerdam]

rich at richsteele.org wrote:
> Well, the copyright statement is technically incorrect, so I'm also 
> uncomfortable with the status quo.  I think the right policy is to NOT 
> include a copyright statement at the top of a source file except where 
> it is third party code included in the distribution that comes with its 
> own notice.  I've mentioned here before that perhaps one way to look at 
> this is that the individual developers own the copyright in their 
> individual contributions/files/etc., but that OSGeo, as the entity that 
> organizes and oversees development, compiles distributions, etc. would 
> hold the copyright in the "collective work".  In this way, there would 
> be an OSGeo copyright notice in the main "LICENSE.txt" file, but no 
> copyright headers in individual files.  Individual files would contain 
> license information, but not necessarily copyright information.
> 
> If this makes no sense (which I suspect is likely), have a look at Cliff 
> Schmidt's work over at Apache, which recently introduced this policy:
> http://www.apache.org/legal/src-headers.html.

Rich,

I've read this over, and I like the Apache model, but I for one am
still somewhat confused about how it would apply in the GRASS case
with no contributor agreements in place.

Does it still make sense to put the apache style header text in
each individual file?  What is the benefit of removing correct copyright
headers for files indicating the actual copyright holder?  I can see
the benefit of removing inaccurate copyright headers.

I do like the idea of the NOTICE file (formalizing what we are already
asking for as part of our incubation work) with the license for the
product as a whole, and notes on any third party licenses.

For a file such as main.c for v.in.ogr in GRASS, it currently has the
following header:

/****************************************************************
  *
  * MODULE:       v.in.ogr
  *
  * AUTHOR(S):    Radim Blazek
  *               Markus Neteler (spatial parm, projection support)
  *               Paul Kelly (projection support)
  *
  * PURPOSE:      Import OGR vectors
  *
  * COPYRIGHT:    (C) 2003 by the GRASS Development Team
  *
  *               This program is free software under the
  *               GNU General Public License (>=v2).
  *               Read the file COPYING that comes with GRASS
  *               for details.
  *
  * TODO: make fixed field length of OFTIntegerList dynamic
  **************************************************************/

What would you propose we change this to? My personal inclination
would be to change it to:

/****************************************************************
  *
  * MODULE:       v.in.ogr
  *
  * AUTHOR(S):    Radim Blazek
  *               Markus Neteler (spatial parm, projection support)
  *               Paul Kelly (projection support)
  *
  * PURPOSE:      Import OGR vectors
  *
  * LICENSE:      This program is free software under the
  *               GNU General Public License (>=v2).
  *               Read the file COPYING that comes with GRASS
  *               for details.
  *
  * TODO: make fixed field length of OFTIntegerList dynamic
  **************************************************************/

In particular, I would hate to remove the licensing text, because it is
the only clear indication we have that the authors are licensing it for
use by the foundation or others without a contributor agreement - which
we are unlikely to get in the case of GRASS.  Then we could have a
collective copyright as OSGeo on all of GRASS noticed in the NOTICE
file, as Apache proposes.

Is this reasonable?

What about files with no license text in them yet.  For instance the
file raster/r.in.coin/main.c has no author, license or other header
information in it.  A review of CVS shows two lines have been added to
the file since it was first brought into CVS in Dec 1999 (presumably
derived from the public domain Cerl version).

Does it make sense in such a case to put in some variation on the
Apache header but that does not mention contributor agreements?  Do
we need to be specific about what basis we claim for the right to
use and license this file?

            Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
            or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
            distributed with this work for additional information
            regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
            to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
            "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
            with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at

              http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

            Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
            software distributed under the License is distributed on an
            "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
            KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
            specific language governing permissions and limitations
            under the License.

I appreciate all your help, and realize I'm bombarding you with
a variety of scenarios.  But I'm eager to see a legally reasonable
path through this especially in cases with uncertain origins (but
with no reason to be suspicious).

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 OSGeo, http://osgeo.org