[Educational] Contributor's agreements, project vs foundation, licensing, and apple pie

Melody Winkle mwinkle at cac.washington.edu
Fri Dec 21 02:10:07 UTC 2007


Would Plone4edu own the copyright on the code?  When we talked to Bob 
Morgan (here at the UW), he was saying it usually helps to have 
institutional ownership of the project code (one institution rather than 
several, and it can be a foundation).  It sounds like the Plone Foundation 
owns the core Plone product, but usually the collective products are owned 
by authors/employers, etc.

Also, he said in his experience, the community source licensing isn't as 
foolproof as, say, the Apache license.

However, since we're building on Plone, then we would want to use GPL for 
add-ons.

-Melody

On Wed, 19 Dec 2007, Kurt Bendl wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I've been up all night thinking about this (I have a life, really!).
> So, I jotted down some more notes here:
> http://www.plone4universities.org/wiki/ContributingCode
>
> Instead of waiting for a response on the wiki, I'm going to spam the
> list with my latest rant:
>
> Project vs Foundation and Contributor's Agreements --KurtB?, Wed, 19
> Dec 2007 09:46:58 +0100 reply
>
> So, after much discussion, it seems to me (not any collective
> consciousness) that at this nascent stage, simply submitting a
> Contributor License Agreement (CLA) to a "Project", and having those
> scanned and posted to the web should suffice. I spoke briefly to
> someone at the Software Freedom Law Center about this. And she seemed
> to think this a good approach at this time. That way, we can get
> started coding and not be bogged-down by waiting for the legal
> wranglings involved in setting up a 501c3.
>
> It's possible we could do digital signing, but I believe most
> institutions are comfortable with a traditional paper and ink
> contributor's agreement. We could designate a fax and physical mailing
> address, and have individuals, businesses, and institutions send
> completed CLAs? to one of those.
>
> There's some background and info on the "Community Source" model at
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_source That article also has an
> interesting discourse on "Community Source" vs "Open Source" or "Free
> Software". It's my opinion that some of the latter parts of the
> article are fluff and need more attention, but what do I know?! :-)
> It's was an interesting read.
>
> Foundation +-
> It's also been suggested that we (institutions) think about the Sakai
> model, where universities not only enter into an agreement, but commit
> funds to membership. Definitely a 501c3 process there. Maybe we can
> discuss this further. But, I think (remember, this is just my personal
> opinion) we need to get started on code, and that means a CLA with the
> "Project" for now.
>
> Just for testing, I've co-opted the Apache Corporate CLA
> http://www.apache.org/licenses/cla-corporate.txt and Individual CLA
> http://www.apache.org/licenses/icla.txt, lightly changing some nouns.
> I sent another note to the SFLC folks with an example, to see if they
> will give us some feedback on whether that will create any conflict
> with the GPL.
>
> Here's a snippet/idea:
>
> #################################################
>                      The Plone4Edu Software Project
>                Software Grant and Institution or Corporate
>                  Contributor License Agreement ("Agreement")
>                      http://www.plone4edu.org/licenses/
>                              (v r1)
>
>
>   Thank you for your interest in The Plone4Edu software project (the
>   "Project"). In order to clarify the intellectual property license
>   granted with Contributions from any person or entity, the Project
>   must have a Contributor License Agreement (CLA) on file that has been
>   signed by each Contributor, indicating agreement to the license terms
>   below. This license is for your protection as a Contributor as well
>   as the protection of the Project and its users; it does not change
>   your rights to use your own Contributions for any other purpose.
>
>   This version of the Agreement allows an entity (the "Institution") to
>   submit Contributions to the Project, to authorize Contributions
>   submitted by its designated employees to the Project, and to grant
>   copyright and patent licenses thereto.
>
> ....
> #################################################
>
> Okay, it's a total rip-off of the Apache CCLA, but you get the idea.
>
> It's also been suggested we consider co-opting the Internet2 License,
> ICLA. and CCLA. A link to those is:
> http://www.internet2.edu/membership/ip.html#appendix_c IMHO, the
> Internet2 Intellectual Property Framework document gives me cause to
> pause. I'd like to keep it more simple, if possible. But, I'm no
> lawyer. GPL just seems to work.
>
> Please add your ideas, feedback, experience, and opinions. I think we
> can come to a workable solution to this in a reasonable time frame.
>
> Oh, there was no apple pie consumed in the production of this rant. At
> least not be me.
>
> -kb
>
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