MapServer and GPL dependencies...

[Frank Warmerdam]

Howard Butler wrote:
> It's unfortunate that they didn't go LGPL...  I'm not a licensing 
> zealot, but it might be a problem for some folks using MapServer.  I 
> suppose our transition to AGG would be gradual and people might 
> initially have the option of not using AGG.  I'm concerned, however, 
> that having parallel renderers, with one being functionally and 
> qualitatively much better than the other will cause all of the 
> development momentum to move toward AGG.  If that happens over the 
> course of a couple of releases, do we effectively limit our licensing 
> and deployment to GPL?

Folks,

I'm also very concerned about using AGG as our primary renderer, that
is the one that gets all the love in the future, if it is GPL.  This
may be construed as limiting ways that mapserver can be used quite a
bit.

For instance, it would definitely be contrary to the GPL license for
us to distribute a MapServer linked with Oracle or SDE client libraries
and AGG.  Or to include a GDAL that has Kakadu JPEG2000 or MrSID support
linked in.   So anyone wanting to use such binaries would be required
to build them for themselves since redistribution would be illegal.

Basically, distributing MapServer with AGG casts a long shadow over
all other things linked into the binaries (including shared libraries).

I don't think that the GPL would impact applications written on top
of MapServer using mapscript but I'm not absolutely sure of this.

So my position is that if we want a "next generation renderer" and if
we have a non-GPL alternative to AGG, we should prefer the non-GPL
alternative all else being reasonable equal.  I, for one, will not
ever be able to distribute a GPL restricted component in FWTools.  I
am already unable to distribute FWTools binaries with GRASS support
because the GRASS libraries are GPL.

All that said, there is no harm in incorporating AGG as an optional
reader, as long as we understand it will only be useful to part of
the community.

PS. Sorry for middle posting.

Best regards,

> On Nov 8, 2006, at 12:04 AM, Steve Lime wrote:
> 
>> Hi folks: We've been looking at AGG as a possible alternative renderer
>> to GD for some time now. One thing that has just popped up in the AGG
>> camp is a license switch with it's latest release. It is now GPL.  I
>> don't believe there's a reason to not consider AGG because of that
>> (PostGIS is GPL), correct?
>>
>> Steve
>>
> 
> 


-- 
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I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | President OSGeo, http://osgeo.org