Intellectual Property
Tim Bunce
are free from potential intellectual property concerns?
Tim.
Dan Sugalski
>What steps are being taken to ensure that patches/code donations to Parrot
>are free from potential intellectual property concerns?
At the moment we're relying on the integrity of the people submitting
patches, with the assumption that people submitting understand the
policies and abide by them. TPF is working up Real Paperwork for
contributors so we can have everything official and as lawyer-proof
as we can manage.
--
Dan
--------------------------------------it's like this-------------------
Dan Sugalski even samurai
d...@sidhe.org have teddy bears and even
teddy bears get drunk
Tim Bunce
> At 9:47 PM +0000 11/21/04, Tim Bunce wrote:
> >What steps are being taken to ensure that patches/code donations to Parrot
> >are free from potential intellectual property concerns?
>
> At the moment we're relying on the integrity of the people submitting
> patches, with the assumption that people submitting understand the
> policies and abide by them. TPF is working up Real Paperwork for
> contributors so we can have everything official and as lawyer-proof
> as we can manage.
I'm glad it's being worked on. It's rapidly becoming a major issue.
Here's a comment I got from IBM about an early draft of the DBI roadmap:
---snip---
I can suggest one important addition to the "Roadmap": A structure for
vetting contributions against IP/Legal entanglements. Without getting too
specific, I can tell you this is a concern internally at IBM and that
major focus is being placed on understanding and tracking the pedigree
behind all third-party open-source software.
At a minimum, it would be helpful to collect statements from all
contributors to the effect that:
a) Code written on employers time has been approved for contribution by
the latter and contains no proprietary or encumbered aspects.
b) All code is represented to be the original work of the person
submitting it and that he/she has the right to contribute it.
c) Perhaps other related factors known only to IP Lawyers <g>.
I know that Linus has been forced by recent events to begin tracking some
of these notions in the Linux kernel development process. To make any
headway in the world where folks might be inclined to write a check, these
issues cannot be ignored - particularly under the US Legal System.
---snip---
It's "boring but important" to get procedures in place before the
backlog of unvetted contributions becomes too great.
Tim.