[Incubator] Acceptable commercial involvement in OSGeo Projects

[Bruce Bannerman]

This is a generic question that may help us develop a consistent policy to
be applied towards projects that we are currently working with and those
that we may potentially work with in the future.


I would appreciate some guidance on what we consider acceptable commercial
involvement within an OSGeo project.

To start this discussion off, I will propose a set of scenarios to help
start and guide the conversation.

These are but four scenarios. There are of course a continuum of variations
to these.


*****
Does OSGeo provide clear guidance as to what is acceptable commercial
involvement within an OSGeo project?
*****

Where do we draw the line on what is considered acceptable involvement?

Bruce


=================
Scenario 1

Organisation X is interested in furthering the development of project A.
The involvement is:

* X allows staff to work on project A
* staff contribute work to project
* staff are assigned commit access
* staff work within project processes and Project Steering Committee (PSC)
to
  ensure that contributed work is assigned a priority release date
* staff integrate work with rest of project code, provide automated tests
etc



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Scenario 2

Organisation Y offers commercial services based on project B.

* Y contracts staff to develop functionality on behalf of a client G
* contract requires G to contribute software back to project B
* Y staff integrate work with rest of project code, provide automated tests
etc
* Y has both commit rights and staff on PSC and ensure that work is
  prioritised for an early release.



==================
Scenario 3

Same organisation Y offers commercial services based on same project B.

* Y contracts staff to develop functionality on behalf of a client H
* contract does not allow Y to contribute software back to project B
* Y staff delivers software to client H as a standalone branch of B
* Y will only integrate above work to project B if paid a fee.


==================
Scenario 4

Organisation Z releases their previously proprietary software as an Open
Source project under a GPL Licence. This becomes Project C.

* Z also releases the software under dual licensing, with a commercial
  closed source version containing more advanced functionality than
  the open source version
* Project C attracts a number of developers
* Z retains control of PSC and discourages developers from adding the
  functionality found in the closed source version to the open source
version
* if a developer does submit such functionality, it is ranked by the PSC
   as low priority and is never released within the open source version.

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