At 15:39 06/07/2012, Niall Ross wrote:

what legal discussions have already taken place.

Dear Niall,

Thanks for your insightful comments!

Issues related to Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) are in general complex. They are raised when institutions invest in developing a piece of software, and depend on their business model. They typically determine who is legally authorized to make decisions, e.g. about licensing policy, and exploit the product(s), etc. In these specific case, it would also involve deciding whether or not to accept such donations.

If these questions have been discussed and the Community is aware of the underlying policies (I personally didn't followed these topics in details), that's fine. Otherwise, IMHO, it would make sense to address them as soon as possible in a systematic way.

Cheers,
Reza