[TOS] contributors' agreements

[C. Titus Brown]

On Mon, Dec 07, 2009 at 10:08:03AM -0500, Greg Wilson wrote:
> Regardless of whether the FLOSS organization requires a contributor's 
> agreement, is it wise to get one so that the student's university doesn't 
> think they have any rights to what the students has done?  Students at the 
> University of Toronto retain rights to what they write for courses, but 
> the University also has some rights, and it isn't clear that the student 
> can sign the latter away (explcitly or implicitly).  We can all agree on 
> how it *should* work, but does anyone have any actual case experience?

A bit tangential, but: Michigan State's policy is explicitly that the
students own their own work unless it's done for research.  For my
Web dev course, I explicitly require certain rights in the syllabus --
specifically, the ability to redistribute code to the rest of the class -- and,
since it's not a required course, it's OK for me to do that.

And, finally, MSU is explicitly OK with releasing anything under the GPL
as long as all authors agree.

cheers,
--titus
-- 
C. Titus Brown, ctb at msu.edu