[Board] Asking permission for re-licensing from LGPL to Apache

[Cameron Shorter]

Martin, board,
(talking as a non-board member)

I recommend that the course of action should be:

1. Note that OSGeo's commitment is to support projects, and support Open 
Source use for projects.
2. Note that there are 2 projects with a vested interest in this 
decision, GeoTools and Geotoolkit.
3. Note that the board would in principle be in a position to support 
Geotoolkit's request, as it is a request to use an Open Source licence 
(which part of OSGeo's charter)
4. However, before making a decision, the board, and/or Martin, should 
approach the GeoTools community, and ask for comment, in particular ask 
the GeoTools community if there are any grounds for objection which 
might revolve around how GeoTools might be adversely effected by such a 
license change.


On 20/07/12 18:42, Martin Desruisseaux wrote:
> Hello all
>
> This is my first post on this mailing list. I'm Martin Desruisseaux, a 
> former GeoTools 2 contributor and now a developer of the 
> Geotoolkit.org project.
>
> In our search for a community, we had a recent discussion with members 
> of the Apache Spatial Information System project 
> (http://incubator.apache.org/sis/), which is in incubation. A small 
> email exchange gave me the feeling that our design goals could be in 
> phase.
>
> http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/incubator-sis-dev/201207.mbox/browser 
> (see the "Exploring possible contribution" thread)
>
> We would like to offer them the Geotoolkit.org code. In order to make 
> that possible, we need OSGeo permission to re-license Geotoolkit.org 
> from its current LGPL 2.1 license to the more permissive Apache 
> license. The proposal is not to transfer the totality of 
> Geotoolkit.org to Apache SIS, but to allow them to review the code and 
> pick-up whatever they wish on a case-by-case basis. The transition to 
> Apache SIS would probably be slow and very progressive.
>
> Geotoolkit.org is a fork of GeoTools 2.6 followed by 4 years of 
> developments. The project contains two parts: "core" and "pending". 
> Our proposal is to begin with the "core" part, which was written 
> (according SVN history) at 95% by myself, Geomatys or IRD institute. 
> The remaining 5% were written by other GeoTools contributors. To my 
> knowledge, everyone signed the copyright assignment on 
> http://download.osgeo.org/osgeo/legal/, which gives copyright to OSGeo.
>
> We would like OSGeo permission to re-license that code. I would like 
> to emphases that this is not a demand for relicensing current 
> GeoTools, but only relicensing of the GeoTools 2.6 code from which 
> Geotoolkit.org is derived, which is 4 years old. If OSGeo accepts to 
> grant us permission to relicense 100% of Geotoolkit.org "core", that 
> would be truly appreciated. But in case of objection, we are willing 
> to rewrite the 5% of "core" code which was not written by myself, 
> Geomatys or IRD.
>
> If OSGeo accepts re-licensing, it would allows Apache SIS to gain 
> services they are currently missing, allows Geotoolkit.org code base 
> to gain a community, and possibly allows the GeoTools project to gain 
> a trusted and maintained metadata and referencing libraries which 
> could replace their current modules, if they wish.
>
> Would it be possible to take this action?
>
>     Regards,
>
>         Martin Desruisseaux
>
> _______________________________________________
> Board mailing list
> Board at lists.osgeo.org
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/board


-- 
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Solutions Manager
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254

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