[Incubator] Re: OSGeo discussion about license

[Cameron Shorter]

Thankyou both for your clarifications.

I think that our graduation process which is focusing on giving software 
users confidence that our code is legally clean REQUIRES legal review 
for every single project going through incubation.

The grunt work can be done by developers, but I don't think we can claim 
legal compliance without legal review.

Legal review would probably consist of:
* Review of license
* Review of contributor acceptance process and guidelines
* Possibly review of statement of code compliance

I'd guess this would be 2 to 5 hours legal work per project.

Jody Garnett wrote:
> I stand correct (and am changing the subject line to match) :-) Legal 
> council is a scare resource that should be rationed, and saved for 
> when we have agreement?
>
> Frank Warmerdam wrote:
>> So, if Jody stepped aside as GeoTools rep over lack of legal support,
>> then it was my fault.  My stepping aside is an effort to resolve the
>> problem ... not an example of the same frustration over again.
> I may of been in error here Frank, I was tired after the code review 
> (which is now out of date) and did not feel like I was being smart in 
> a legal sense. I like to make sure GeoTools has the best 
> representation it can find ... and for license issues that was 
> certaintly not me.
>
> Now this current conversation we are having about what is usual 
> practice goes a long way towards addressing the communication gap. 
> Perhaps just comparing notes with other projects (and getting a good 
> idea for what kinds of things are possible) is all the legal advice 
> needed to get a good idea on the table.
>
> One of the ways I was failing as a representative was taking these 
> discussions back to the community. I think I may corner Chris with 
> some of the GeoTools PMC and he can chat about what he is doing for 
> GeoServer.
>> I hope this provides some clarification.
> Ditto.
>
> Jody
>


-- 
Cameron Shorter
Systems Architect, http://lisasoft.com.au
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254