[OSGeo-Discuss] GIS_Libraries

[P Kishor]

On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 11:06 AM, Daniel Ames <amesdani at isu.edu> wrote:
> Nenad,
> The OSGeo projects use a variety of licenses. You'll see LGPL, MPL, GPL,
> MIT, and others. If you are developing commercial tools, you'll need to
> avoid GPL (someone correct me if I'm wrong.)

----
Disclaimer: IANAL. Get legal advice from your lawyer before embarking
on your million dollar enterprise.
----

I'll correct you, because, as stated above, you are misrepresenting at
best, and wrong at worst. ;-)

GPL does not prevent you from making money. GPL only requires that if
you modify the code that is under GPL, then you must redistribute the
modified code under GPL. Granted this may not be easy to figure out in
real world scenarios, but consider the following --

Let's say ShapeLib is published under GPL (I don't know whether or not
it is; this is only for illustration purpose). Let's say, MapServer
utilizes ShapeLib, but doesn't modify ShapeLib, but uses ShapeLib as
is. Let's say, MapServer's creator decides to make millions off of
MapServer, Inc. He is under no obligation to release the source code
of MapServer, but he is obligated to release the source code of
ShapeLib, which is no big deal, because the source code of ShapeLib is
already available to anyone.

On the other hand, let's say, ShapeLib is modified to perform better,
or differently, for MapServer. Now, there is an obligation to release
the source code to the modified version of ShapeLib no matter what the
value of that value-added might be. That is what the GPL obligates.
MapServer itself is still governed by whatever license that its
creator decides to apply.


> Also take into consideration development platform/language.
> My group (MapWindow project) has a number of people using our GIS SDK for
> commercial applications in the .NET platform. MapWindow is licensed under
> MPL 1.1 which supports commercial usage.
> Dan
>
> On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 7:07 AM, Nenad Milasinovic
> <nenad.milasinovic at zesium.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>> I am interested is there any reliable open source, LGPL licensed GIS SDK
>> or library suited for building commercial, platform independent GIS
>> application on top of it.
>> I am also interested for commercial solutions but only as SDK or library.
>> I will appreciate any help.
>>
>> Best regards.
>>
>> --
>> Nenad Milasinovic
>> Software Development and Testing
>>
>> ---
>>
>> "ZESIUM mobile" d.o.o.
>> Valentina Vodnika 8/9
>> 21000 Novi Sad
>> Serbia
>> Tel: +381 (0)21 472 15 48
>> Fax: +381 (0)21 472 15 49
>> Mob: +381 (0)61 231 41 20
>> E-mail: nenad.milasinovic at zesium.com
>>
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>
>
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-- 
Puneet Kishor http://www.punkish.org/
Carbon Model http://carbonmodel.org/
Charter Member, Open Source Geospatial Foundation http://www.osgeo.org/
Science Commons Fellow, Geospatial Data http://sciencecommons.org
Nelson Institute, UW-Madison http://www.nelson.wisc.edu/
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