[QGIS-Developer] C Hamilton Plugin Continunity

[Emma Hain]

Thanks Greg
I have written up some ideas here
<https://qgis-australia.org/qgis/succession-planning/> that I hope goes
someway for future planners. It scares me as I was in an organisation that
went from totally support OS to trying to rid it with a vengeance.

On Wed, 19 Jun 2024 at 21:39, Greg Troxel via QGIS-Developer <
qgis-developer at lists.osgeo.org> wrote:

> 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.
>
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-- 
Emma Hain — Product Manager/Senior GIS Analyst
emma at north-road.com
[image: https://north-road.com]
*North Road*
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