[OSGeo-Discuss] ICA Working Group on Open Source Geospatial Technologies
Hi All, The International Cartographic Association's Executive Committee http://cartography.tuwien.ac.at/ica/ has approved the establishment of Working Group on Open Source Geospatial Technologies at its meeting last week in Chile. The Open Source Geospatial Technologies Working Group aims to promote multi-national holistic research in open source geospatial technologies in order to make accessible the latest developments in open source tools to the wider cartographic community. The WG attempts to enhance the usage of open source geospatial tools among the cartographic community worldwide, especially for education. Finally, the working group will promote the usage of professional and technical standards (ISO TC 211, OGC) for the development of open source geospatial software. Working group membership is open to all interested parties and we aim for representation by as many countries. Promotional strategies of the working group include regular e-mails to members, meetings, conferences, workshops, promotion of geospatial standards and publications. Terms of Reference - Working Group on Open Source Geospatial Technologies 1. To promote the widespread use of open source geospatial software 2. To provide support for the use of open source geospatial software in education through relevant publications 3. To organise conferences, workshops and training sessions for open source geospatial technologies 4. To organise special lectures and demonstrations on open source geospatial technologies 5. To make open source geospatial software more accessible to end users 6. To serve as a network for ICA members interested in open source geospatial technologies by the use of mailing lists, wiki etc 7. Through collaboration with other ICA commissions and working groups promote coordination with different open source geospatial organisations (eg. Open Source Geospatial Foundation) and developer communities. 8. Develop and keep updated the working group's website to disseminate the working group activities. 9. Produce annual reports of the working group activities. ICA have adopted a policy of approving WGs on a one year approval period and within this period it is essential to prove sufficient activity and the First Open Source GIS UK Conference to be jointly organised with OSGeo UK Chapter and Open Knowledge Foundation on 22nd June 2009 at CGS, University of Nottingham will be one of the key events planned as part of the WG activities. We are inviting expressions of interest from interested people to become members of the Working Group and to help steer its activities. If interested to join the WG please email [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Working Group's website and mailing lists will be activated in January 2009. Please contact me for any information needed. Best wishes, Suchith Dr Suchith Anand Centre for Geospatial Science Sir Clive Granger Building University of Nottingham Tel: (0)115 846 8408 url: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/cgs/cgs_suchith_anand.html This message has been checked for viruses but the contents of an attachment may still contain software viruses, which could damage your computer system: you are advised to perform your own checks. Email communications with the University of Nottingham may be monitored as permitted by UK legislation. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] copyright question
Hi list, today I was in a meeting about GeoExt, and the following question came up: Is it possible for OsGeo to take copyright for a project which yet has to form and has not passed incubation as such? A commercial company has expressed issues contributing if the copyright is not owned by a trustworthy independent organization such as OsGeo. Is anybody able to answer this? TIA. Best regards, Bart -- Bart van den Eijnden OSGIS, Open Source GIS [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.osgis.nl ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] copyright question
All, I'm interested in this question as well, since we have some similar business needs related to non-profits and open-source project funding, things like who can/should claim to be the owner for donation seeking and such. Just philosophical stuff right now, but who knows in the future. bobb Bart van den Eijnden (OSGIS) [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/09/08 1:12 PM Hi list, today I was in a meeting about GeoExt, and the following question came up: Is it possible for OsGeo to take copyright for a project which yet has to form and has not passed incubation as such? A commercial company has expressed issues contributing if the copyright is not owned by a trustworthy independent organization such as OsGeo. Is anybody able to answer this? TIA. Best regards, Bart -- Bart van den Eijnden OSGIS, Open Source GIS [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.osgis.nl ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] copyright question
On Dec 9, 2008, at 1:11 PM, Bart van den Eijnden (OSGIS) wrote: Hi list, today I was in a meeting about GeoExt, and the following question came up: Is it possible for OsGeo to take copyright for a project which yet has to form and has not passed incubation as such? It's certainly much easier than getting all past contributors to sign off. As to whether or not we allow that, I don't think we have any precedent. I don't know who you'd ask other than maybe the incubation committee to come up with a policy that they could recommend to the board to sign off on. I think the incubation committee is the place to have the argument whether OSGeo can support setting up a shell to hold a potential project including copyright assignment. From a systems standpoint, we do support shell or nascent projects, but not from a legal one AFAIK. A commercial company has expressed issues contributing if the copyright is not owned by a trustworthy independent organization such as OsGeo. In my opinion, copyright really only matters if you are going to *change the license* after the fact. Getting contribution under a license that people can agree to is more important than who maintains the copyright and has the ability to change the license if they want at some point in the future after the project has been going. In fact, the more contributors there are, the harder it becomes to go back and change things. IMO, this voids the worry about trust. Trust the license under which you agree to participate in the project, not the individual who maintains the copyright on the one source file in the project that adds XYZ feature. Howard ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] copyright question
On Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 1:11 PM, Bart van den Eijnden (OSGIS) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi list, today I was in a meeting about GeoExt, and the following question came up: Is it possible for OsGeo to take copyright for a project which yet has to form and has not passed incubation as such? Just looking at the above question, the answer would be no in the US. In the US, per Title 17, Section 102, original works of authorship have to be fixed in any tangible medium of expression before they can acquire copyright protection. Since the said project hasn't yet been formed, it can't be protected. A commercial company has expressed issues contributing if the copyright is not owned by a trustworthy independent organization such as OsGeo. Is anybody able to answer this? TIA. Best regards, Bart -- Bart van den Eijnden OSGIS, Open Source GIS [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.osgis.nl ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Puneet Kishor http://www.punkish.org/ Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies http://www.nelson.wisc.edu/ Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) http://www.osgeo.org/ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] copyright question
Bart van den Eijnden (OSGIS) wrote: Hi list, today I was in a meeting about GeoExt, and the following question came up: Is it possible for OsGeo to take copyright for a project which yet has to form and has not passed incubation as such? A commercial company has expressed issues contributing if the copyright is not owned by a trustworthy independent organization such as OsGeo. Is anybody able to answer this? TIA. Bart (and Bob), It isn't obvious to me that OSGeo has to do anything for you to assign copyright to us. So in that sense you could likely just force it on us. However, my suggestion would be for you to request OSGeo to accept code copyright by way of a letter to the board. Alternatively, if there is an existing OSGeo project to which the GeoExt project relates somewhat closely, you might ask them to take it on under their project governance. To be legal in the USA we understand copyright assignment to require a signed document. There are some examples of assignment, and contributor agreements available at: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Incubation_Committee Note that OSGeo holding the copyright doesn't generally mean we will do much. But for OSGeo projects our position has been that the code must remain available under an open source license (OSI certified or clearly equivelent to an OSI certified license). We defer to the project PSC on changes to the license (within those constraints). We are generally hesitant to take legal enforcement action against violators of the license, preferring to resolve issues through negotiation and education. As a board member I'd be more supportive of taking on some responsibility for a project (ie. holding code copyright) if I thought the project was likely to go through the incubation process eventually. And, once again, I'd rather see an existing incubated project PSC take responsibility rather than having to do it directly via the board if possible. Best regards, -- ---+-- I set the clouds in motion - turn up | Frank Warmerdam, [EMAIL PROTECTED] light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam and watch the world go round - Rush| Geospatial Programmer for Rent ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] copyright question
So if the project had been formed, but does not contain any source code as yet it's possible? Or am I misinterpreting your words? Best regards, Bart P Kishor wrote: On Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 1:11 PM, Bart van den Eijnden (OSGIS) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi list, today I was in a meeting about GeoExt, and the following question came up: Is it possible for OsGeo to take copyright for a project which yet has to form and has not passed incubation as such? Just looking at the above question, the answer would be no in the US. In the US, per Title 17, Section 102, original works of authorship have to be fixed in any tangible medium of expression before they can acquire copyright protection. Since the said project hasn't yet been formed, it can't be protected. A commercial company has expressed issues contributing if the copyright is not owned by a trustworthy independent organization such as OsGeo. Is anybody able to answer this? TIA. Best regards, Bart -- Bart van den Eijnden OSGIS, Open Source GIS [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.osgis.nl ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Bart van den Eijnden OSGIS, Open Source GIS [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.osgis.nl ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] copyright question
P Kishor wrote: On Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 1:11 PM, Bart van den Eijnden (OSGIS) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi list, today I was in a meeting about GeoExt, and the following question came up: Is it possible for OsGeo to take copyright for a project which yet has to form and has not passed incubation as such? Just looking at the above question, the answer would be no in the US. In the US, per Title 17, Section 102, original works of authorship have to be fixed in any tangible medium of expression before they can acquire copyright protection. Since the said project hasn't yet been formed, it can't be protected. Puneet, It appears to be a common practice to write copyright assignments and contributor agreements in such a way that they apply to new contributions as they are created. Of course for this to work well it is necessary to be reasonably clear about what is being contributed. So regardless of the text of title 17, section 102, reputable intellectual property lawyers have not shown any hesitation to draft agreements related to future creations. Best regards, -- ---+-- I set the clouds in motion - turn up | Frank Warmerdam, [EMAIL PROTECTED] light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam and watch the world go round - Rush| Geospatial Programmer for Rent ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] copyright question
P Kishor wrote: Any right is only as good as its defense in the court. Just because reputable IP lawyers may draft copyright assignments in works that don't yet exist doesn't mean that actual copyrights in those works exist. Puneet, I don't claim that the copyright exists before the thing being copyrighted exists. Only that it is possible to write a contract that grants that copyright in advance of it actually existing. The actual assignment for each chunk presumably takes place as it is created and the copyright comes into existance. I am doubtful that this tangent is really important to the question of whether these folks can assign the copyright of their work-to-come to OSGeo. Best regards, -- ---+-- I set the clouds in motion - turn up | Frank Warmerdam, [EMAIL PROTECTED] light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam and watch the world go round - Rush| Geospatial Programmer for Rent ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] copyright question
On Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 2:33 PM, Frank Warmerdam [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: P Kishor wrote: Any right is only as good as its defense in the court. Just because reputable IP lawyers may draft copyright assignments in works that don't yet exist doesn't mean that actual copyrights in those works exist. Puneet, I don't claim that the copyright exists before the thing being copyrighted exists. Only that it is possible to write a contract that grants that copyright in advance of it actually existing. The actual assignment for each chunk presumably takes place as it is created and the copyright comes into existance. I am doubtful that this tangent is really important to the question of whether these folks can assign the copyright of their work-to-come to OSGeo. Yes, you are correct in stating that a contract can be written granting rights in one's future work to someone else. That is how work-for-hire works, for example. You and I were indeed talking slightly past each other. I interpreted Bart's question at face value -- can OsGeo to take copyright for a project which yet has to form. The answer is no. There are no rights yet, so nothing can be taken. On the other hand, can a creator of a work give up one's rights in future work to OSGeo? Sure, based on a contract, one can. Regards, -- Puneet Kishor ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] copyright question
Hey- Bart van den Eijnden (OSGIS) wrote: Thanks all for this very informative thread! Best regards, Bart Bart, thanks for raising the question - and to others for responses. Here is a bit more based on conversation on #osgeo. When asked under what conditions the OSGeo would accept copyright assignment, Frank mentioned that if an existing OSGeo project were to take responsibility for a sub project (looking for better words), it would make more sense for the OSGeo to accept some responsibility (accepting copyright). When I followed up by expressing confusion about exactly what an existing project PSC would agree to (in this case, the OpenLayers PSC), this followed: (01:39:40 PM) tschaub: I still wonder exactly what the ol psc would agree to (01:40:44 PM) FrankW: You would presumably ask them to accept responsibility for the code with the caveat that the copyright would be assigned to OSGeo, not metacarta and it would be best if you present the copyright assignment or contributor agreement you want to use in the motion to the OL PSC. (01:41:20 PM) FrankW: You might also write into the motion that the OL PSC would attempt to defer to the GeoExt PSC (or equiv) with regard to issues about that GeoExt code. Hope that appropriately characterizes the discussion. Tim P Kishor wrote: On Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 2:33 PM, Frank Warmerdam [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: P Kishor wrote: Any right is only as good as its defense in the court. Just because reputable IP lawyers may draft copyright assignments in works that don't yet exist doesn't mean that actual copyrights in those works exist. Puneet, I don't claim that the copyright exists before the thing being copyrighted exists. Only that it is possible to write a contract that grants that copyright in advance of it actually existing. The actual assignment for each chunk presumably takes place as it is created and the copyright comes into existance. I am doubtful that this tangent is really important to the question of whether these folks can assign the copyright of their work-to-come to OSGeo. Yes, you are correct in stating that a contract can be written granting rights in one's future work to someone else. That is how work-for-hire works, for example. You and I were indeed talking slightly past each other. I interpreted Bart's question at face value -- can OsGeo to take copyright for a project which yet has to form. The answer is no. There are no rights yet, so nothing can be taken. On the other hand, can a creator of a work give up one's rights in future work to OSGeo? Sure, based on a contract, one can. Regards, -- Puneet Kishor ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Tim Schaub OpenGeo - http://opengeo.org Expert service straight from the developers. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] ICA Working Group on Open Source Geospatial Technologies
Hi, This is a nice development by ICA. pl give location of this information (website). Would like INCA (the Indian counterpart of ICA) informed about this. Cheers Ravi Kumar --- On Tue, 12/9/08, Suchith Anand [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: From: Suchith Anand [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] ICA Working Group on Open Source Geospatial Technologies To: discuss@lists.osgeo.org Date: Tuesday, December 9, 2008, 9:29 PM Hi All, The International Cartographic Association's Executive Committee http://cartography.tuwien.ac.at/ica/ has approved the establishment of Working Group on Open Source Geospatial Technologies at its meeting last week in Chile. The Open Source Geospatial Technologies Working Group aims to promote multi-national holistic research in open source geospatial technologies in order to make accessible the latest developments in open source tools to the wider cartographic community. The WG attempts to enhance the usage of open source geospatial tools among the cartographic community worldwide, especially for education. Finally, the working group will promote the usage of professional and technical standards (ISO TC 211, OGC) for the development of open source geospatial software. Working group membership is open to all interested parties and we aim for representation by as many countries. Promotional strategies of the working group include regular e-mails to members, meetings, conferences, workshops, promotion of geospatial standards and publications. Terms of Reference - Working Group on Open Source Geospatial Technologies 1. To promote the widespread use of open source geospatial software 2. To provide support for the use of open source geospatial software in education through relevant publications 3. To organise conferences, workshops and training sessions for open source geospatial technologies 4. To organise special lectures and demonstrations on open source geospatial technologies 5. To make open source geospatial software more accessible to end users 6. To serve as a network for ICA members interested in open source geospatial technologies by the use of mailing lists, wiki etc 7. Through collaboration with other ICA commissions and working groups promote coordination with different open source geospatial organisations (eg. Open Source Geospatial Foundation) and developer communities. 8. Develop and keep updated the working group's website to disseminate the working group activities. 9. Produce annual reports of the working group activities. ICA have adopted a policy of approving WGs on a one year approval period and within this period it is essential to prove sufficient activity and the First Open Source GIS UK Conference to be jointly organised with OSGeo UK Chapter and Open Knowledge Foundation on 22nd June 2009 at CGS, University of Nottingham will be one of the key events planned as part of the WG activities. We are inviting expressions of interest from interested people to become members of the Working Group and to help steer its activities. If interested to join the WG please email [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Working Group's website and mailing lists will be activated in January 2009. Please contact me for any information needed. Best wishes, Suchith Dr Suchith Anand Centre for Geospatial Science Sir Clive Granger Building University of Nottingham Tel: (0)115 846 8408 url: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/cgs/cgs_suchith_anand.html This message has been checked for viruses but the contents of an attachment may still contain software viruses, which could damage your computer system: you are advised to perform your own checks. Email communications with the University of Nottingham may be monitored as permitted by UK legislation. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Membership map, querying the wiki and more...
Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo) wrote: I'm always looking for more ways to summarise statistics about OSGeo and was reminded recently about some of the good work shown here - a map and a member list based on wiki categories and properties: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Category:OSGeo_Member It's not a definitive list but is nice work, I'm not sure who to pat on the back - good job! I've been trying to get to a place where I can get a list of Members, charter members, list of chapters and their members, projects and the members of their steering committees, etc. Not so easy. One way I like to present things during talks is by using graphical representations of the OSGeo ecosystem. Some of you have seen the Freemind Mindmap approach I used before.[1] I've also been able to start to pull wiki pages and their links to other pages out into a similar mindmap format. See this test page for experiments based on my user page [2]. Memory and other issues prevent from doing too much more online in real-time though, and the tests might fail, but you get the idea. These use the Semantic Mediawiki extension which also provides a powerful tool for querying the wiki. You can add properties to pages (which I haven't explored yet), but even without them you can query across Categories. Here is one example of querying for all the pages tagged as OSGeo Member and also related to a Local Chapters [3]. And a more refined search that only shows User accounts that are tagged as member pages and also with Local Chapter tags [4]. Bit of a mind-bender but pretty neat when you see what it is really doing. I'm wondering if we can get more out of the wiki using these fancy tools, without a lot of manual leg work. It leaves me wondering if a simple form-based, user/member tracking tool might help - so members can simply select which projects/committees they are on, providing a simple record for generating reports from. What do you think - is editing the wiki a higher barrier then filling in some forms? Would it feel more official if you had to fill in a form and click become an OSGeo Member? :) p.s. You can also output RDF though I haven't used it for much yet, and not sure it is really working [5] [1] Slide 8 9 show mindmap: http://svn.osgeo.org/osgeo/community/presentations/20070925-Victoria/OSGeoCommunity.html [2] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Test_Graphs [3] http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php?title=Special:Askoffset=0limit=500q=+%5B%5BCategory%3ALocal+Chapters%7CCategory%3AOSGeo+Member%5D%5Dp=format%3Dbroadtable [4] http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php?title=Special:Askoffset=0limit=500q=%5B%5B%3A%2B%7C%7CUser%3A%2B%5D%5D+%5B%5BCategory%3AOSGeo+Member%5D%5D+%5B%5BCategory%3ALocal+Chapters%5D%5Dp=format%3Dbroadtable [5] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Special:ExportRDF/ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss A bit of a side trek but have you considered running the wiki logs through code swarm. I've been contemplating if we should run code swarm on all the project svn's as a PR tool for the projects and osgeo as a whole as it would highlight just how many people contribute. http://code.google.com/p/codeswarm/ Alex ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] copyright question
- P Kishor [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 1:52 PM, Bart van den Eijnden (OSGIS) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So if the project had been formed, but does not contain any source code as yet it's possible? Or am I misinterpreting your words? Well, it is entirely possible that I am misinterpreting your words. I am not sure what is a project as different from the code? How can there be a project if there is no code? Besides, a project is not copyrighted... it is the code that is copyrighted, and that is done by considering software source code as a literary work actually. If projects without code could be copyrighted then every joe the plumber would dream up of all kinds of fanciful projects that only exist in ones mind, and copyright them. Then everyone else would be shut out. A clever lawyer could also argue that the project is an idea, while the code is the expression of that idea. Since ideas can't be copyrighted, there you go. Consider this example -- I have this wonderful idea that given an address, the computer should be able to figure out the lat/lon. I call this project by the name geocoding and copyright it even though I haven't written a lick of code. Now everyone else is shut out from writing computer programs to do geocoding. That wouldn't be nice, would it? I believe in the US that is known as a patent ;) Chris -- Files attached to this email may be in ISO 26300 format (OASIS Open Document Format). If you have difficulty opening them, please visit http://iso26300.info for more information. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
