[SeasonOfDocs] TheGoodDocsProject: Finding a legal entity to assign license ownership to

[Eric Holscher]

Makes sense. In my experience, companies are more worried about the license
of the content than the copyright (most OSS in general is owned by private
individuals or other corporations). WTD doesn't own any source code
historically of value that we'd want to relicense, so copyright ownership
hasn't been something we've been worried about.

Cheers,
Eric

On Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 1:03 PM Cameron Shorter <cameron.shorter at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Thanks Eric for the info,
>
> It is a pity WriteTheDocs isn't a non-profit, but I understand the
> challenges with setting up a not-for-profit - the OSGeo Foundation went
> through a lot of heartache going through the process.
>
> While it would be great if were legally under the umbrella of
> WriteTheDocs, I suspect that being under the umbrella of a not-for-profit
> entity will be important for potential contributors from big companies.
>
> I'm open to suggestions on who we should reach out to here.
>
> Cheers, Cameron
> On 17/7/19 3:32 am, Eric Holscher wrote:
>
> WTD info is documented here:
> http://www.writethedocs.org/about-us/#legal-entity -- so, if you're
> looking for a non-profit organization, we're not one at the moment. It
> might be in the cards eventually, but it likely doesn't make sense for us
> currently.
>
> We don't do any copyright assignment, so each person owns their own
> contributions on our site.
>
> Cheers,
> Eric
>
> On Sat, Jul 13, 2019 at 6:54 PM Cameron Shorter <cameron.shorter at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Folks,
>> We should consider which legal entity will own the material we create.
>> People or a legal entity will own artifacts we create and others can use
>> the artifact under the terms of the license.
>>
>> As I understand it, our options are:
>> * Every contributor owns their personal contribution. This makes it very
>> difficult to relicense a collective work in future, which has pros and cons.
>> * More common is to assign ownership to a trustworthy non-profit
>> foundation, (such as the Apache Foundation, Open Source Foundation, or Open
>> Source Geospatial Foundation).
>>
>> I'm in favour of selecting a suitable foundation to assign our copyright
>> to and would like to hear suggestions. I suspect the legal structure behind
>> WriteTheDocs would be good.
>>
>> Eric, Jennifer, do you know the legal status of WriteTheDocs? Or are you
>> able to put us in touch with someone who knows?
>>
>> --
>> Cameron Shorter
>> Technology Demystifier
>> Open Technologies and Geospatial Consultant
>>
>> M +61 (0) 419 142 254
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> --
> Co-founder Write the Docs
> http://www.writethedocs.org
>
> --
> Cameron Shorter
> Technology Demystifier
> Open Technologies and Geospatial Consultant
>
> M +61 (0) 419 142 254
>
>

-- 
Co-founder Write the Docs
http://www.writethedocs.org
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