[Incubator] labs project assigning copyright

Peter Baumann p.baumann at jacobs-university.de
Wed Jun 3 17:59:58 EDT 2009


Hi all (+ Bruce, as our incubation mentor),

an issue of interest to us (rasdaman) as well.
Following some google sessions, we have established an approach as follows:
- patches are accepted only via the official website and the resp. form

- and, to allow for submission, the Submitter Agreement must be accepted
- which then is bundled with the patch into a tarball stored in our 
patch repository, and will never be deleted.

My understanding (but not my invention) is that this way we can prove 
that any code submitted has agreed to the license model.

Q: is this procedure considered adequate by OSGeo?

-Peter




Frank Warmerdam wrote:
> Tim Schaub wrote:
>   
>> Hello-
>>
>> GeoExt is project for building ExtJS based applications with OpenLayers 
>> functionality.  I read through the OSGeo Labs information and added the 
>> project to the list [1].
>>
>> The GeoExt project steering committee would like to assign copyright for 
>> the GeoExt code base to OSGeo.  The Labs page suggests that this could 
>> be done by "Asking the incubation committee and doing it".
>>
>> If that is an acceptable way getting approval for assigning copyright, 
>> please consider this an official request: can we please assign copyright 
>> for the GeoExt code base to OSGeo?
>>
>> I have put together a Contributor Agreement [2] and will collect 
>> signatures from our contributors if this is acceptable.  The agreement 
>> is based on the GeoTools template.  Our code will be distributed with a 
>> BSD license.
>>
>> Thank you for any answers you can provide.  For previous discussion on 
>> the subject, see the OSGeo-Discuss list [3].  Also, if anybody has any 
>> other suggestions on how this should be done, please let me know.  We're 
>> hoping to do an initial release in the next week and would like to have 
>> this issue settled.
>>     
>
> Tim (and Tyler),
>
> It has been my opinion that assignment to OSGeo can be done as long as Tyler
> is willing to collect the assignment documents and store them as
> secretary.  I do not particularly think the incubation committee needs to
> approve it unless Tyler prefers that.
>
> Cameron brings up an interesting point with regard to keeping the documents
> in SVN as scanned documents.  On the one hand, in some venues it is necessary
> to have a physically signed document, but we actually take these submissions
> by fax which is digital so presumably a digital scan of a physical document
> is sufficient.  In this case it might be a good practice for us to keep the
> documents in the OSGeo SVN.  This would mean we could dispense with Tyler
> having to take any action and it would give much improved transparency.
>
> In light of this, I would like to suggest the following procedure:
>
>   o Projects wishing to assign copyright to the foundation should seek the
>     agreement of the current OSGeo Secretary (currently Tyler), who if they
>     are doubtful could seek input from the board.  For project in incubation
>     or full OSGeo projects it should be automatic.
>
>   o Agreements should all be stored in scanned format in the OSGeo SVN.
>     We can give out SVN commit access to one or two representatives of each
>     project so they can actually add the agreements themselves after some
>     vetting.
>
>   o Tyler should collect existing agreements he has on file, and put them
>     into SVN for safekeeping and transparency.
>
> Tyler - any thoughts?
>
> Pending feedback, I'd be interested in the incubator recommending this
> procedure to the board for approval and would be willing to prepare such
> a motion.
>
> Best regards,
>   

-- 
Dr. Peter Baumann
 - Professor of Computer Science, Jacobs University Bremen
   www.faculty.jacobs-university.de/pbaumann
   mail: p.baumann at jacobs-university.de
   tel: +49-421-200-3178, fax: +49-421-200-493178
 - Executive Director, rasdaman GmbH Bremen (HRB 147737)
   www.rasdaman.com, mail: baumann at rasdaman.com
   tel: 0800-rasdaman, fax: 0800-rasdafax, mobile: +49-173-5837882
"A brilliant idea is a job halfdone."


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