Proposed Fusion Contributor Agreements

[Jason Fournier]

All,

I have posted two proposed Fusion contributor agreements on the following
page:

http://trac.osgeo.org/fusion/wiki/Committers

They are based on Autodesk's MapGuide OS and FDO agreements.  This seemed to
be the best starting point as they have been legally vetted and are accepted
by OSGeo in fully-fledged foundation projects.  I believe this is a positive
step towards incubation and ensuring code provenance.

All are welcome to review and comment.  There have been initial reviews for
accuracy but please make note of any peculiarities or inconsistencies.
After a couple of days I will call a vote for PSC members.

Thanks to Autodesk for allowing us to base the agreements on their efforts.

Best regards,
Jason



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[Daniel Morissette]

I am not a lawyer and did not review the two documents word for word,
but the spirit of them seems right to me. As usual, a few notes/comments:

1- In the case of individuals doing contributions as part of their work,
the question of whether they need both an individual *and* a corporate
CLA will inevitably come up.

There was a discussion about this in the case of MapGuide and FDO and I
forgot what the conclusion was. I suggest we follow Apache's guidelines
(they have similar individual and corporate CLAs) and require individual
CLAs for everyone, even if their employer has already signed a corporate
CLA... and make that clear on our website.

Excerpt from http://www.apache.org/licenses/#clas

"""
For a corporation that has assigned employees to work on an Apache
project, a Corporate CLA (CCLA) is available for contributing
intellectual property via the corporation, that may have been assigned
as part of an employment agreement. Note that a Corporate CLA does not
remove the need for every developer to sign their own CLA as an
individual, to cover any of their contributions which are not owned by
the corporation signing the CCLA.
"""

2- To simplify the process of eventually moving Fusion to OSGeo, should
we check with OSGeo about the possibility of having the Foundation
manage the CLAs from day one instead of going through DMSG now and
moving to OSGeo later?

Daniel


Jason Fournier wrote:

> All,
>
> I have posted two proposed Fusion contributor agreements on the following
> page:
>
> http://trac.osgeo.org/fusion/wiki/Committers
>
> They are based on Autodesk's MapGuide OS and FDO agreements.  This seemed to
> be the best starting point as they have been legally vetted and are accepted
> by OSGeo in fully-fledged foundation projects.  I believe this is a positive
> step towards incubation and ensuring code provenance.
>
> All are welcome to review and comment.  There have been initial reviews for
> accuracy but please make note of any peculiarities or inconsistencies.
> After a couple of days I will call a vote for PSC members.
>
> Thanks to Autodesk for allowing us to base the agreements on their efforts.
>
> Best regards,
> Jason
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> fusion-dev mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/fusion-dev

--
Daniel Morissette
http://www.mapgears.com/
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[Jason Fournier]

 

> 1- In the case of individuals doing contributions as part of their
> work,
> the question of whether they need both an individual *and* a corporate
> CLA will inevitably come up.
>
> There was a discussion about this in the case of MapGuide and FDO and I
> forgot what the conclusion was. I suggest we follow Apache's guidelines
> (they have similar individual and corporate CLAs) and require
> individual
> CLAs for everyone, even if their employer has already signed a
> corporate
> CLA... and make that clear on our website.
>

Agreed.

>
> 2- To simplify the process of eventually moving Fusion to OSGeo, should
> we check with OSGeo about the possibility of having the Foundation
> manage the CLAs from day one instead of going through DMSG now and
> moving to OSGeo later?


This certainly makes sense.  I didn't realize it was an option but it would
be welcomed.

Jason


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[Daniel Morissette]

Jason Fournier wrote:

>
>> 2- To simplify the process of eventually moving Fusion to OSGeo, should
>> we check with OSGeo about the possibility of having the Foundation
>> manage the CLAs from day one instead of going through DMSG now and
>> moving to OSGeo later?
>
>
> This certainly makes sense.  I didn't realize it was an option but it would
> be welcomed.
>

I'll raise a question about this on the OSGeo Incubator list and see
what the committee thinks.

Daniel
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[Daniel Morissette]

Daniel Morissette wrote:

> Jason Fournier wrote:
>>
>>> 2- To simplify the process of eventually moving Fusion to OSGeo, should
>>> we check with OSGeo about the possibility of having the Foundation
>>> manage the CLAs from day one instead of going through DMSG now and
>>> moving to OSGeo later?
>>
>>
>> This certainly makes sense.  I didn't realize it was an option but it
>> would
>> be welcomed.
>>
>
> I'll raise a question about this on the OSGeo Incubator list and see
> what the committee thinks.
>

See the responses I got on the incubator list:
http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/incubator/2008-August/001018.html

Frank Warmerdam wrote on incubator list:
> People can assign contributions to OSGeo without OSGeo taking any action,
> so there is no harm in this.  As long as Tyler doesn't mind receiving and
> filing the agreements I see no harm in this happening without Fusion
> actually being in incubation or an official project.
>
> So, my claim would be that all you need is Tyler agreement to manage the
> documents which he can do on his own judgement.

I already got informal agreement from Tyler on IRC the other day about
him managing the forms, so I think we're fine if we want to go that route.

Daniel
--
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[Jason Fournier]

> See the responses I got on the incubator list:
> http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/incubator/2008-August/001018.html

> I already got informal agreement from Tyler on IRC the other day about
> him managing the forms, so I think we're fine if we want to go that
> route.

Thanks for your efforts Daniel.  It seems there were two ideas for managing
the forms:

1) Have Tyler collect both print and scanned forms and keep manage them.
2) Have a PSC member collect the print and scanned forms, place them in
Fusion SVN, and then pass along a copy to Tyler for his records.

I think #2 is a good balance - less work for Tyler.  I don't mind serving as
the Fusion POC for collecting the agreements.

I'll revert the agreements to their original MapGuide OS/FDO form (i.e.,
using OSGeo as the primary organization) with appropriate changes for
Fusion.  I hope to do that this week.

Jay


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