Re: [Geotools-devel] GeoTIFF job code

[James M. <jma...@ps...>]

At 12:42 PM 7/13/2004 -0600, Bryce L Nordgren wrote:
>One caveat: I'm a US Gov't civil servant, meaning the GeoTIFF module I
>write is going to be public domain, not copyleft-able.   Is that
>problematic?

Couple of answers to that...  First we have other US Gov't employees who 
work on GeoTools under the LGPL licence (IanS?) though I guess their 
contributions may be under 'spare time'.  But it may be that contributing 
to an existing project would allow you to do the work.

The other answer is that the modular structure of GeoTools was designed to 
allow plugins with different licences to be created.  I'm not sure if the 
code could co-exist in the same tree though, I'd have to do some more research.

I've just been doing some research into 'public domain' and the following 
document is interesting:
http://www.fin.ucar.edu/legal/publicdomain.html

The final section is of particular interest so I will paste it here:
"
How can I control my work if I put it in the public domain?

You cannot control your work once it is in the public domain.  Your work 
can be changed, exploited and someone else can even take credit for it. "

In other words, once you make the code 'public domain' their is nothing to 
stop the GeoTools PMC group from taking it and re-releasing it under 
another, more restrictive, license.  Not something I would ever normally 
condone, but if it was done with your informal consent it could work.

All the best

James