[Incubator] Questions about Documentation License and Code Contribution Procedures

[Jody Garnett]

Afternoon Landon.
> I'm in the midst of trying to tie up loose ends on the GeoServer
> incubation graduation. A couple of questions came up today. I'm hoping
> the other committee members can help me answer them:
> 
> 1) Project Documentation: Does existing project documentation need to
> be released under an open license for a project to graduate
> incubation. That seems to be indicated by the information here:
> 
> http://www.osgeo.org/incubator/process/project_graduation_checklist.html
I agree that page does want the documentation available under an open license of some sort.  It is not something we have really talked projects through on this list before - so I cannot think of much by way of guidance. 

I have a couple examples:
- GeoTools docs were initially published under free document license, and are now available under creative commons (http://docs.geotools.org/latest/userguide/welcome/license.html#document-license).
- GeoMoose is published under an MIT license (http://www.geomoose.org/info/license.html) with the understanding that also applies to their documentation (see the nice note at the bottom of each page in the footer)

GeoServer has no such page, and the docs need their footer change to say "(c) 2013 Open Plans" or something 
> 2) Are there specific requirements for code contribution procedures?
> 
> 

I think it is just that we expect a project to *have* a procedure (to obtain permission to distribute provided code).

We have any number of examples, GeoMoose was using MapServer's procedure as guide (nice fairly informal light process). As an alternative GeoTools provides an actual contribution agreement to sign. 
> This copywrite was an item in my checklist for Geoserver, but I couldn't find it
> 
> 

Should be in the developer guide, let me look:
- http://docs.geoserver.org/stable/en/developer/policies/comitting.html#comitting 

There is also a contribution agreement somewhere, I will ask on the geoserver-devel list.
> mentioned on the project gradutation checlist or the page for code
> provenance review. Maybe I dreamed it up? :] At any rate, if I need to
> look for specific things in Geoservers code contribution procedures,
> what are they?

I check for:
- does the project have a contribution process (many projects have not thought it through yet)
- they obtained agreement / permission from each party (person and/or organisation if they are an employee)
- the project keeps a record of who they have given commit access to (i.e. if they needed to contact everyone they could)

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/incubator/attachments/20130109/3865b5ac/attachment.html>