Andreas Neumann <[email protected]> writes: > Before we go to far with the discussion here, I would first ask all of > the core devs if they really would like to do that. > > Without an agreement in place, the code is owned by each contributor > separately. I know of quite a few core devs who are not keen on ceding > their copyright to QGIS.ORG, if the goal is to undermine the GPL > license. > > I am also not sure if QGIS.ORG is ready to prepare such an ownership > agreement. > > Personally, I fail to understand what the benefits are, if we go this > route. On the contrary - I think we are risking to loose many core > contributors if we do that.
I'm a lurker who has not contributed to qgis, but someday might. Within pkgsrc.org, a multi-os multi-arch portable packaging system, I'm one of the people that most frequently gets asked license questions. I maintain the geos/postgis entries in pkgsrc. I have contributed to a number of open source projects -- but I tend to find something else to do when I'm asked to sign any kind of CLA or copyright assignment. I think there are multiple things going on: How do people feel about accomodating Apple's ban on GPL software for the iOS app store? People have talked about qgis having an exception, but nobody has brought up talking to Apple to get them to change their terms. I suspect those who really believe in the GPL's purpose don't want to make an exception, and there will be enough such people that rewriting all their code is not sensible. Evolution of the license as the licensing landscape change. If we are talking about changing GPL2 or later to GPL3 or later, that seems straightforward, and I think all it takes is for core to accept some nontrivial code that is GPL3 or later. There is the serious question about not letting people copy/modify/redistribute under GPL2, but that's a group social question, not something that needs every contributor to sign off on. Change to permissive. Perhaps because of wanting to accomodate Apple, or for other reasons, some may want a permissive license. This is a huge cultural change, and I would expect a significant number of people would not be ok with this. Copyright assignment. This opens up the fear of a change in license later (to permissive or to accomodate Apple's GPL ban), which leads to wanting to have terms in the assignment that constrain the future choice. And it means asking people to sign copyright assignments before their code can be merged. In my view, this alienates potential contributors. So if qgis stays on the GPL "N or later" track, I don't see why this helps, and it will definitely hurt. _______________________________________________ QGIS-Developer mailing list [email protected] List info: https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer Unsubscribe: https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer
