FreeLists / dokuwiki / [dokuwiki] Re: Process for contributions to dkuwiki

[Andreas Gohr <andi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi!

> Is there a process for code contributions that includes verifying the
> contributor has rights to redistribute their code contribution?  Does
> Andreas Gohr (or someone else) provide the contributor with any type
> of agreement that might cover this?

I got a private mail by Pat explaining this question a bit more. I
answer in public because this might be interesting to others wanting to
use DokuWiki in their company.

There is no official process of verifying that code contributions are
the intellectual property of the contributor. How should I do that?
However this is a highly theoretical question anyway. Most
contributions are small chunks of code (patches) especially written to
change or add small things to DokuWiki. Whenever new libraries are
introduced to DokuWiki we check that those libraries are licensed under
the GPL or a compatible license.

> I work for a company whose legal staff is asking these two questions
> (before we are allowed to use dokuwiki): 
>
> 1) Who did you work for when you wrote dokuwiki?

The same company as I do now. CosmoCode GmbH (http://www.cosmocode.de).
However this does not matter. DokuWiki is not a CosmoCode product but
was written in my spare time. It is released under the GPL, so all
additions that I may create during my job as an CosmoCode employee are
licensed under the GPL as well.

> 2) Is there any information that indicates that your employer
> permitted you to make the contribution and/or disclaimed any right to
> the code or otherwise approve of the contribution? 

Well, we offer official support for DokuWiki at our company, and I am
allowed to dedicate 4 workdays a year to work on any DokuWiki stuff I
like (regardless of the use for CosmoCode). But as I said before, all
this does not matter because of the GPL licensing.

BTW. I think my boss is subscribed to this list, though I'm not sure if
he reads all the posts ;-).

To sum it up: DokuWiki is GPL (version 2). Your legal staff should be
able to figure out what that means (If not, they should refer to the
Free Software Foundation for help). Should there be any code within
DokuWiki which was contributed without the proper rights or being
based on an incompatible license it will be removed and replaced by free
(libre) code.

Andi

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