GRASS Project Incubation
Project Incubation at the OSGeo Foundation
Each project proposed to go into the OSGeo Foundation has to go through an incubation process (see https://incubator.osgeo.org/).
This is a process derived from the Apache Foundation with some modifications. It basically covers license issues, a contributor agreement, project management and the state of the community (no dead projects are desired). Some draft notes can be found here:
http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Project_Incubation (this is the temporary wiki of the OSGeo Foundation unless the osgeo.org isn't completely ready).
The basic role of the incubator is to do various sorts of review of projects as they join the foundation. This includes IP review (is all the code cleanly under an OS license?), arranging setup or approval of a project steering committee with appropriate governance, and ensuring that committers sign appropriate contributor agreements (see below).
Some information on the Incubation Committee can be found at:
At the preceeding board meeting it was decided that all founding projects would go through the incubation process, not just new projects added in the future. To that end, that the incubation committee needs one official representative on the incubation committee from each of the eight founding projects.
One of the first items of discussion for incubation is the Committer Agreements. These are legal documents that anyone with CVS/SVN commit access may sign (will become optional). Basically they provide the foundation the right to redistribute the provided code, and to defend the code in case of litigation. But it does require the committer and possibly their employer to agree that they have the right to provide code they are committing to the project.
The board has reviewed a proposed committer agreement based loosely on the Apache committer agreement. Now the incubation committee is looking for broader feedback on it the agreements. Of most interest is feedback from significant code contributors. The draft agreements and a FAQ are available at:
http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Contributor_Agreement
Feedback may be sent to OSGeo discuss mailing list, or to the incubation committee via project representatives there.
A questionaire was answered here: http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/GRASS_Incubation_Progress
Update
The Contributor Agreement is no longer a requirement.