I am sorry, i thought my last posting went to Mr. Kusterer
(sheepishly embarassed)
Like I said, law is common sense. A contract can be
express or implied by the facts. Be sure and tell
any code writer that the project is not for profit. As long
as they know this, then they can't get money out of you.
Do you have lots of persons wanting to write code? Can
happily write a contract for you - but i need to know the
details you want - i.e. the source code remains the property
of the author, but the partnership has an irrevocable licence
to use resources generated from the source code
I.e. do you want a license for the partnership to use
the compiled code? Or to use the source code? Or for third parties to use the
authoring tool to be created? Both?
Really I need to know the specific relationship you want
between authors of source code, the resources generated, your
society, and third parties.
I would recommend:
Authors : keep control over their source code
OpenStack Consortium : has an irrevocable license to
use resources generated from source code
Third Party Users : Have a license (revocable?) to use
the authoring tool to be developed.
I expect authors would be reluctant to transfer ownership
of their code, but to protect the partnership you need to
have an irrevocable license to use the compiled code.
So tell me what you want in terms of arrangement between
the code authors and your partnership and I will draw up
the documents.
You were concerned about the possibility of a code writer
sending you code with a request for money. In such a case
return the code ASAP to sender, along with a note clearly
indicating that this is a non profit enterprise and that
while you appreciate their efforts, you have not asked for
their offer and that you do not accept their offer.
Or, similarly. If the person sends you code, with no request for
money, and later asks for money a court probably would say
"no" (60 to 80% certain depending on the facts).
The way to prevent this is easy: Simply inform all your code
writers from the get go that the project is "open source", i.e. their
submissions while remaining their personal property do not imply any
obligation on the part of the partnership. Also so indicate
in your majordomo letters - i.e. a one line blurb saying
"OpenStack is a not for profit enterprise. Consequently,
we cannot pay for anything you submit. Unsolicited submissions,
while remaining your personal property, do not imply any
legal obligation on the part of the openstack partners, commercial
or otherwise. Moreover, openstack reserves the right to irrevocably
use object code generated by submissions, solicited or
otherwise. Thus, if in doubt, please contact us prior to submitting any
material."
All but the next to last line is very fair, and should CYA.
Oh, good legal language is actually clear. If you do not
understand anything in the above paragraph, tell me so I can
rewrite it - really, it has to be clear to your authors what
there rights are and are not.
So, include that in your postings and you should be fine
sorry.
I am not sure I understand the following paragraph:
- We would also need help on how to protect the "official distribution". -In
-short, we intend to distribute the sources for free and allow everybody -to
-create his/her own OpenCard, but under another name (BTW - OpenCard is a
-working name, when we have the product finished we'll go and decide on a
-final name). This way we want to make sure that there's at least one
-reliable and stable version out there.
Is the idea that you have say fifty odd resources that the
person links via resEdit? Or fifty odd functions to be
compiled and linked via, e.g. code warrior?
Or - i think this is what you mean (i think) - you want to
develop an authoring tool,
and make the resources public domain,
(up to here, i understand, from here i'm not sure what you
mean)
but you want to prevent a later developper from producing a
similar tool from your resources
and then ordering you not to produce your tool
Please clarify the scenarios you are trying to prevent
____________________________________________________________________
Get free email and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1
