[OSGeo-Discuss] Incubation Committee / Contributor Agreements

[Cameron Shorter]

Rich Steele wrote:

> I have posted an FAQ to cover these and some of the other questions I'm
> anticipating about the contributor agreement.  See:
> http://www.fossgis.de/osgeo/index.php/Contributor_Agreement

Thankyou, that is great.

> 
> Where libraries are imported from other open source projects, it should
> not be necessary for the library developers to sign the contributor
> agreement.  However, these third party code dependencies will need to be
> identified and the relevant project PSC will need to evaluate whether
> non-OSGeo code can and should be added to the project.  This evaluation
> would need to consider not only whether creating such dependencies is
> warranted, but also whether the license terms are compatible.  This
> inquiry is relevant not only to projects in incubation, but also ongoing
> project management once a project is admitted to the foundation.

Rich, this is a good start.  It would be nice to have a prescriptive 
checklist with regards to incorporating libraries.
* I'd like to see a OS Licence compatability matrix.  Last time I 
looked, I could find compatability info on the common licences, but for 
less common licences (and versions of the licences) the information was 
not available or there were conflicting reports.

* I think incorporating libraries is generally a good thing.  It means 
that you can tap into the expertise from the people developers of the 
library and saves re-inventing the wheel.  So assuming the libraries are 
technically suitable, and the licence is ok, is there anything else we 
need to audit for?  We should have an audit checklist.

* If we need ongoing auditing of our code or libraries, when do we need 
to apply these audits?  Whenever we import another version of a library? 
  If so, what output is required from the audit to confirm that the 
audit was conducted?  I'd expect to see a report of some kind.


-- 
Cameron Shorter
http://cameron.shorter.net