Re: [Geotools-devel] vector to raster to vector

[Jody G. <jod...@gm...>]

Hi Michael:

We encountered this before; with respect to the contributions of Bryce.

Here is what we came up with:
- Public domain contributions (ie gov employees)
individual code: can sign w/ no conflict as themselves
gov code: already public domain - OSGeo does not need a license treat
on a case by case basis

Just like some of the files credit (c) Refractions in the header (for
my earlier work); the files Bryce worked on have the following
(Example from GeoTiffException):

/*
 *    GeoTools - The Open Source Java GIS Toolkit
 *    http://geotools.org
 *
 *    (C) 2005-2008, Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo)
 *
 *    This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
 *    modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
 *    License as published by the Free Software Foundation;
 *    version 2.1 of the License.
 *
 *    This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 *    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 *    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
 *    Lesser General Public License for more details.
 */
/*
 * NOTICE OF RELEASE TO THE PUBLIC DOMAIN
 *
 * This work was created by employees of the USDA Forest Service's
 * Fire Science Lab for internal use.  It is therefore ineligible for
 * copyright under title 17, section 105 of the United States Code.  You
 * may treat it as you would treat any public domain work: it may be used,
 * changed, copied, or redistributed, with or without permission of the
 * authors, for free or for compensation.  You may not claim exclusive
 * ownership of this code because it is already owned by everyone.  Use this
 * software entirely at your own risk.  No warranty of any kind is given.
 *
 * A copy of 17-USC-105 should have accompanied this distribution in the file
 * 17USC105.html.  If not, you may access the law via the US Government's
 * public websites:
 *   - http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#105
 *   - http://www.gpoaccess.gov/uscode/  (enter "17USC105" in the search box.)
 */



On Fri, May 22, 2009 at 4:04 PM, Michael Bedward
<mic...@gm...> wrote:
> Hello folks,
>
> Somewhere back in this thread I mentioned contacting Steve Ansari
> about some nice vector to raster code that he posted on the user list
> last year. Steve is happy for this code to go into the library (Jody
> suggested it join the raster to vector code in the process module) so
> I pointed him to the contributor's agreement.
>
> I've just heard back from Steve and, as a US Govt employee, he feels
> that he can't proceed with the agreement. Apparently, his employer
> views the code as being in the public domain so it's fine for us to
> use it but not possible for him to sign over intellectual property
> (I'm cc-ing this to Steve and he can correct me if I've mangled that).
>
> Steve wondered if I could take ownership of the code to get around
> this, while he could still field queries about it and (I hope) benefit
> from any improvements that we come up with.  Is that kosher ?  Any
> other suggestions ?
>
> cheers
> Michael
>