Thanks Greg I have written up some ideas here <https://qgis-australia.org/qgis/succession-planning/> that I hope goes someway for future planners. It scares me as I was in an organisation that went from totally support OS to trying to rid it with a vengeance.
On Wed, 19 Jun 2024 at 21:39, Greg Troxel via QGIS-Developer < qgis-developer@lists.osgeo.org> wrote: > Emma Hain via QGIS-Developer <qgis-developer@lists.osgeo.org> writes: > > > This is very interesting and a real part of OS software management in > > regards to maintainance once the creator wishes to retire (and rightly > > so!). On top of that, if the ownership sits with an organisation. For > > clarification, does NGA or do you, Calvin, own them? > > > > I imagine if it is from one person to another, this is an informal > > handover, but what happens when it is an organisation? Does an Assignment > > of Ownership need to take place? > > This is a little complicated. I have no knowledge of the details of > this situation but have dealt with open source licensing in the context > of US government contractors and US law. Generally: > > When a person writes code, they hold copyright to it, except: > > If they have executed a copyright assignment, they don't. This is > typically either for contractors (either when the parties pretend it > isn't employment or when it really isn't) or for individuals who > assign to e.g. FSF. Less happily, it can be some forms of CLA to > some company. > > When an employed person writes code "within the scope of > employment", then the employer holds copyright. This is the "work > for hire" doctrine. > > Works of the US government are not subject to copyright and are in > the public domain. (Different countries are different here, > massively.) > > Code under an open source license does not need assignment for others > to improve and distribute it, because the license grants those > permissions. > > A plugin is arguably a derived work of qgis, and thus must be > distributed under a compatible license. (I think the project should > express this as doctrine and decline to support or interact with > (shun) plugins that don't have compatible licenses.) So even if the > US government does not hold copyright in their code, the resulting > code is a derived work of qgis and can only be distributed under the > GPL. > > Contributions to the plugin from others (e.g. if someone submitted a > non-trivial change and it was merged) are copyrighted by them and thus > a declared license leads to inbound=outbound terms, making it clear > that the submitted change is licensed under the plugin's license. > > There are social issues about forks, separately from copyright, but > Calvin's message is quite clear that someone who wants to maintain > them (and have the updated/maintained code exist in the qgis world > under the original names) would be good. > > _______________________________________________ > QGIS-Developer mailing list > QGIS-Developer@lists.osgeo.org > List info: https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer > Unsubscribe: https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer > -- Emma Hain — Product Manager/Senior GIS Analyst e...@north-road.com [image: https://north-road.com] *North Road* Cartography • Development • Spatial Analysis ------------------------------ *north-road.com* <http://north-road.com> <https://twitter.com/northroadgeo> <https://www.linkedin.com/company/north-road-studios> <https://www.facebook.com/North-Road-997236690392419/home>
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