[OpenLayers-Dev] Fwd: [OpenLayers-PSC] CLA questions

[John R. Frank]

Pierre, your work and that of the IGN sounds really great.  I'm sure we
can work this out.

If I understand your email correctly, this is the issue:

> they (public company) aren't currently ready to give contributor
> agreements to Metacarta (private company).


To make sure we're all talking about the same thing, by making a
contribution to OpenLayers the IGN (and any other contributor) makes that
intellectual property available to all consumers of the project, including
MetaCarta.  So whether it goes:

  IGN --> (somebody -->) OpenLayers --> all consumers

or

  IGN --> (MetaCarta -->) OpenLayers --> all consumers


The effect is the same.  MetaCarta is simply acting as a custodian for the
project by keeping records of all the contributors.  We (the PSC) know
where all the code came from and have a license agreement from all those
sources.  The public benefit of this is simple:  if someone ever attacks
OpenLayers or a consumer of OL with a claim that some part of OL infringes
their rights, we have documentation proving where that part of the code
came from.

If the IGN is uncomfortable signing the CLA directly with MC, they could
grant sufficient rights to some intermediary (such as camptocamp or an
individual) and then that person could contribute it under their CLA.


Let me know what you think of this.


Yours,
John