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

[Andreas Hocevar]

Thanks Chris for bringing this up.

For now, I am

+1 on both proposals.

Also important for me at a later time (but as soon as possible):

+1 on collecting new contributor agreements to assign copyright to 
OSGeo, for the reasons pointed out by Roald,

and, for the sake of organisations who do not contribute back because of 
concerns with the current license,

either:
+1 on new contributor agreements granting license to OSGeo to sublicense 
OpenLayers as they please

or:
+1 on the PSC advising MetaCarta to distribute OpenLayers with a license 
that meets the requirements of organisations that do not contribute back 
because of concerns with the current license

Regards,
Andreas.


Tim Schaub wrote:
> 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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>
>
>   


-- 
Andreas Hocevar
OpenGeo - http://opengeo.org/
Expert service straight from the developers.