[QGIS-Developer] C Hamilton Plugin Continunity

[Greg Troxel]

Emma Hain via QGIS-Developer <qgis-developer at lists.osgeo.org> writes:

> This is very interesting and a real part of OS software management in
> regards to maintainance once the creator wishes to retire (and rightly
> so!). On top of that, if the ownership sits with an organisation. For
> clarification, does NGA or do you, Calvin, own them?
>
> I imagine if it is from one person to another, this is an informal
> handover, but what happens when it is an organisation? Does an Assignment
> of Ownership need to take place?

This is a little complicated.  I have no knowledge of the details of
this situation but have dealt with open source licensing in the context
of US government contractors and US law.  Generally:

  When a person writes code, they hold copyright to it, except:

    If they have executed a copyright assignment, they don't.  This is
    typically either for contractors (either when the parties pretend it
    isn't employment or when it really isn't) or for individuals who
    assign to e.g. FSF.  Less happily, it can be some forms of CLA to
    some company.

    When an employed person writes code "within the scope of
    employment", then the employer holds copyright.  This is the "work
    for hire" doctrine.

    Works of the US government are not subject to copyright and are in
    the public domain.  (Different countries are different here,
    massively.)

  Code under an open source license does not need assignment for others
  to improve and distribute it, because the license grants those
  permissions.

  A plugin is arguably a derived work of qgis, and thus must be
  distributed under a compatible license.  (I think the project should
  express this as doctrine and decline to support or interact with
  (shun) plugins that don't have compatible licenses.)  So even if the
  US government does not hold copyright in their code, the resulting
  code is a derived work of qgis and can only be distributed under the
  GPL.

  Contributions to the plugin from others (e.g. if someone submitted a
  non-trivial change and it was merged) are copyrighted by them and thus
  a declared license leads to inbound=outbound terms, making it clear
  that the submitted change is licensed under the plugin's license.

  There are social issues about forks, separately from copyright, but
  Calvin's message is quite clear that someone who wants to maintain
  them (and have the updated/maintained code exist in the qgis world
  under the original names) would be good.