[OpenLayers-Dev] [Fwd: [OpenLayers-PSC] Two proposals: Copyright in Source, Corporate Copyright in Authors]

[Tim Schaub]

Hey-

Roald de Wit wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> If you are going to change the license, why not assign the copyright to
> OSGeo like has happened with GeoExt [1]? To me it seems that assigning
> it to 'OpenLayers Contributors' can cause issues if you want to change
> the license in the future, since you'll need to ask every contributor to
> agree on this. I've seen something similar happen with the Mozilla
> project [2]. Or does our BSD-like license not suffer from that?
> 

To be clear, this proposal is not about changing the license granted 
when MetaCarta distributes OpenLayers (the Clear BSD).  This proposal is 
about two things:

1) the copyright statement in the code, and
2) the authors.txt file that we maintain.

The PSC is at a point where we can vote about changing those two things. 
  The PSC *cannot* assign copyright of OpenLayers to another entity 
(like OSGeo).  The PSC also *cannot* distribute OpenLayers with any 
other license unless it conforms with the Clear BSD.  The PSC *can* (at 
a later time) collect new contributor agreements from all contributors 
that either 1) assign copyright to a different entity, 2) grant license 
to a different entity to sublicense OpenLayers as they please.  In 
addition, MetaCarta can be advised by the PSC to distribute OpenLayers 
with a different license.

All of the above can be discussed as separate topics.  None really have 
to do with these two specific proposals.  These proposals are about 
clarifying the current situation: OpenLayers copyright is held 
collectively by the OpenLayers contributors, not by MetaCarta.

Thanks for voting,
Tim

> Regards, Roald
> 
> [1] http://dev.geoext.org/trunk/geoext/license.txt
> [2] http://www-archive.mozilla.org/MPL/relicensing-faq.html
> 
> On 11/11/09 12:58, Tim Schaub wrote:
>> Hey-
>>
>> The Project Steering Committee has been discussing some issues with our
>> Contributor License Agreement and code copyright.  While there are
>> associated issues that might follow from this, we are at the point where
>> we'll be voting on proposals to change the copyright statement in the
>> code source and the authors file we maintain.
>>
>> The bottom line is that by signing our CLA, contributors do not assign
>> copyright to anyone.  Instead, our CLA is about granting a license to
>> the project maintainer (MetaCarta).  It follows from this that the
>> copyright to OpenLayers is collectively held by the individuals and
>> corporations that signed contributor agreements.
>>
>> Thanks to Chris for his careful work deciphering things.  Below are
>> summaries of his two proposals that we will be voting on (full message
>> at the bottom).
>>
>> 1. Copyright in Source
>> ----------------------
>>
>> Change all source files and other copyright statements to read
>> "Copyright OpenLayers Contributors" instead of "Copyright MetaCarta,
>> Inc."  In addition, include the URL for the authors file in the
>> copyright statement.
>>
>>
>> 2. Corporations in Authors File
>> -------------------------------
>>
>> Where we have signed CCLA documents from contributors, include the
>> Corporation name along with the individual's name in the authors.txt file.
>>
>> e.g.
>>
>> James Bond (Her Majesty's Secret Service)
>>
>>
>> Thanks for voting.  And again, thanks to Chris for careful deductive work.
>>
>> I'm +1 on both proposals.
>>
>> Tim
>>
>> -------- Original Message --------
>> Subject: [OpenLayers-PSC] Two proposals: Copyright in Source,  Corporate
>> Copyright in Authors
>> Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 10:14:28 -0500
>> From: Christopher Schmidt<crschmidt at metacarta.com>
>> To: psc at openlayers.org
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Two proposals. Please vote on each individually.
>>
>> ----
>>
>> Currently, the OpenLayers source files say "Copyright MetaCarta, Inc." with
>> a date. This is not correct; since we only have a license to code from
>> our contributors, and not the actual copyright of it, we should instead
>> change this text from:
>>
>> /* Copyright (c) 2006-2008 MetaCarta, Inc., published under the Clear BSD
>>    * license.  See http://svn.openlayers.org/trunk/openlayers/license.txt
>> for the
>>    * full text of the license. */
>>
>> to
>>
>> /* Copyright (c) 2006-2009 OpenLayers Contributors, published under the
>> Clear
>>    * BSD license.  See
>> http://svn.openlayers.org/trunk/openlayers/license.txt for
>>    * the full text of the license. */
>>
>> I am in favor of this change. (+1)
>>
>> ----
>>
>> Currently, our doc/authors.txt list does not identify the corporate entities
>> associated with contributors during the time which they made contributions
>> to OpenLayers. (Essentially, tying a CCLA to a person.) Since the code
>> copyright actually belongs in part to these organizations, I recommend that
>> we do our best to fix this situation, by doing our best to associate users
>> in the d oc/authors.txt with their corporate parents where appropriate.
>>
>> For example, this might look like:
>>
>> Christopher Schmidt (MetaCarta)
>> Tim Schaub (OpenGeo)
>> Schuyler Erle (MetaCarta, Entropy Free)
>>
>> I am in favor of this change. (+1)
>>
>> Best Regards,
>>
> 
> 
> --
> Roald de Wit
> Software Engineer
> roald.dewit at lisasoft.com
> 
> Commercial Support for Open Source GIS Software
> http://lisasoft.com/LISAsoft/SupportedProducts/
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
Tim Schaub
OpenGeo - http://opengeo.org
Expert service straight from the developers.