OSGeo Contributor Agreement Review

[Steve Lime]

Since MapServer is MIT/X11 it is assumed that if you contribute code you
do so under the project license- that does not seem to be an issue. However
the relicensing rubs a lot people the wrong way. Someone commented 
today that the MIT/X11 license basically allows relicensing anyway though.

I'd hate to do anything that would jepordize contributions...

Steve

>>> Petter Reinholdtsen <pere at hungry.com> 03/20/06 4:24 PM >>>
[Steve Lime]
> Out of curiousity. How many folks would NOT sign such an agreement?
> Would the mere presence of such a thing scared you away in the first
> place?

I would not be very willing, at least.  I read the FAQ, and my first
reaction was two-fold:

 - The use of "intellectual property" in the text made me thing of
   <URL:http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.xhtml>, and the fact
   that there is not much patents, trademarks and copyright have in
   common that is useful to generalize, and thus that the use of that
   term is rubbing me the wrong way.

 - I am not generally willing to relicense my GPL work with a less
   restrictive license.  If you want my help, you need to promise me
   to give me your help, and if you want to use my code, I want to
   make you legally required to give me your improvements.  Because of
   this, I do not want to delegate the right to relicense my GPL code.
   If I contribute to projects with other licenses, it is ok for my
   contribution to use the same license as the project, but I do not
   want projects to change license to some less restrictive license
   without me having a say on the topic.

Not sure if my opinion should be given much weight, though.  After
all, I am not doing much mapserver development, and only packaging it
(and other GIS tools) for Debian. :)

Friendly,
-- 
Petter Reinholdtsen
One of those