[OSGeo-Discuss] [OSGeo-Standards] Lidar News magazine false statements on (L)GPL (Was REPORT: my OGC membership slot)

Tue Oct 6 15:53:07 PDT 2015

Cameron,

I’ll stay away from the legal opinions of open source - this is really outside my domain!!!!

As to the Point Cloud Domain Working Group, we held the first official meeting of the group a few weeks ago in Nottingham.  A couple of good developments:

1. The elected chairs come from a diversity of experience (commercial and academia) and are not limited to LiDAR expertise;
2. The group is starting to develop a list of potential actions to pursue.

A public wiki exists, but is only just now beginning to get populated.
http://external.opengis.org/twiki_public/PointCloudDWG/WebHome <http://external.opengis.org/twiki_public/PointCloudDWG/WebHome>

The group plans regular telecons - I’ll make sure to announce those to the OSGeo discussion list.

Best Regards,
Scott

> On Oct 4, 2015, at 9:34 PM, Cameron Shorter <cameron.shorter at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi Martin,
> Based on your description below, it appears that Lewis Graham is using deliberate technical obfuscation under the banner of ASPRS, which is tarnishing the technical credibility of ASPRS.
> 
> Oliver's detailed rebuttal is good, but is only valuable if a number of people of influence who read and are swayed by the rebuttal.
> 
> Roland,
> I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on publishing a correction of facts, as presented by Oliver (or similar)?
> Further, in future, you might find it helpful to consult with experts in Open Standards prior to publishing, in order to:
> a. Correct facts before publishing, and hence provide a more credible publication. We can put you in touch with appropriate experts.
> b. Provide a balanced article, with different opinions.
> Would you like us to help source contacts that you could call upon for an opinion?
> 
> Martin,
> I hope we don't have to go as far as building upon our previous Open Letter, which would effectively publicly discredit Lewis (again) and would tarnish the reputation of Lewis/ASPRS and wouldn't look good for publications presenting un-countered FUD.
> 
> Scott,
> I suspect the OGC might be interested in helping counter the FUD being spread. Possibly by approaching offenders behind the scene and suggesting they desist with the FUD, or by respectfully countering the FUD in public forums. 
> 
> Martin, Scott,
> I'd be interested to hear how the OGC Point Cloud working group has been progressing.
> Is positive progress being made?
> (Feel free to point at a blog or web page or similar which might already have such details).
> 
> Warm regards,
> Cameron Shorter
> 
> 
> 
> On 3/10/2015 11:46 pm, Martin Isenburg wrote:
>> Hello,
>> 
>> I was hoping that Lewis Graham would see the futility of furthering his incorrect claims on the "dangers" of the LGPL license for commercial projects (and his other odd statements) but he continues to do so not just in private but also in his role as the Chair of the ASRPS LAS Working Group  This gives his FUD non-sense a very prominent outlet in front of very influential people, so OSGeo should probably respond to this a bit more loudly than usual.
>> 
>> In the "LiDAR Sidebar" at the ASPRS UAS Reno conference [1] there was a discussion on point cloud formats that was more or less a direct consequence of the "Open Letter" by OSGeo [2]. Lewis continued to claim that it was impossible to make LASzip an official format because I would be unwilling to donated it under an MIT license to the ASPRS (note: i do not even remember being asked) and that an LGPL would be impossible and "dangerous" for commercial companies to work with (note: nevermind the 55+ companies that already do [3]).
>> 
>> So I emailed the participants (my dial-in connection was shakey) the following:
>> 
>> "Here a detailed rebuttal of Lewis' "LGPL of Martin's LASzip implementation is dangerous" non-sense:
>> http://odoepner.wordpress.com/2015/06/16/lidar-news-publishes-uninformed-gpl-rant/ <http://odoepner.wordpress.com/2015/06/16/lidar-news-publishes-uninformed-gpl-rant/>
>> And yes, the currently available open LASzip format implementation (!!!) comes with a "static linking exception" because some new devices do not support dynamic linking well. Would be good to get someone to sponsor the creation of an open LASzip format specification (!!!) so anyone can reimplement it and give their resulting implementation whatever license they see best fit. A license is only attached to a particular implementation. From an open LASzip format specification anyone could write their own implementation (closed or open with any license they want)."
>> 
>> To which Lewis answered (just repeating the same old FUD):
>> 
>> "Rather than entering into an inane debate over licensing with Martin, I suggest anyone who is concerned check with their intellectual property attorney prior to incorporating third party software into internal build software, regardless of the license type of that third party software.  We do a lot of software consulting and most of our more savvy clients clearly specify what type of licensing can be incorporated into the composite deliverables.
>> 
>> I also suggest that the world of software development and deployment has become far too complex to continue to use the undefined term “open source.”  For example, some customers have source code to the GeoCue production software under license.  Is that Open Source?  I suggest instead that we use terminology such as “binaries available under license XYZ” or “source suitable for compilation available under license ABX.”"
>> 
>> I can not believe that Lewis himself actually believes his own statements but uses them tactically to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt. I am not sure why. Maybe in order to stall the standardization process of LAS and LAZ because he is somehow afraid it will loosen his grip onto the LAS format?
>> 
>> Regards,
>> 
>> Martin @rapidlasso
>> 
>> [1] http://uasreno.org/2015/09/09/asprs-adds-lidar-sidebar-to-reno-program/ <http://uasreno.org/2015/09/09/asprs-adds-lidar-sidebar-to-reno-program/>
>> [2] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/LIDAR_Format_Letter <http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/LIDAR_Format_Letter>
>> [3] http://laszip.org/#software-with-native-laz-support <http://laszip.org/#software-with-native-laz-support>
>> 
>> On Mon, Sep 21, 2015 at 12:00 PM, Martin Isenburg < <mailto:martin.isenburg at gmail.com>martin.isenburg at gmail.com <mailto:martin.isenburg at gmail.com>> wrote:
>> >
>> > Hello,
>> >
>> > We (Oliver and me) had contacted the (new) editor (Roland Mangold who is cc-ed) last week and suggested to use the contents of this blog article
>> >
>> > http://odoepner.wordpress.com/2015/06/16/lidar-news-publishes-uninformed-gpl-rant/ <http://odoepner.wordpress.com/2015/06/16/lidar-news-publishes-uninformed-gpl-rant/>
>> >
>> > authored by Oliver Doepner as a factual rebuttal of Lewis Graham's FUD rant on GPL/LGPL for publishing in the next issue of the LiDAR Magazine (the two-month ago rebranded LiDAR News magazine). I have no final word from the Roland yet but our communication suggested that this would happen. Please check Oliver's column for any errors (should you care) so he can correct them prior to this being published.
>> >
>> > Regards,
>> >
>> > Martin @rapidlasso
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On Mon, Sep 21, 2015 at 11:52 AM, Jo Cook < <mailto:jocook at astuntechnology.com>jocook at astuntechnology.com <mailto:jocook at astuntechnology.com>> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> I think this is something that we at OSGeo should definitely respond to. Perhaps we could contact the magazine and explain that there were some factual errors in the article, and ask for a chance to respond?
>> >>
>> >> Jo
>> >>
>> >> On Mon, Sep 21, 2015 at 10:38 AM, Johan Van de Wauw <johan.vandewauw at gmail.com <mailto:johan.vandewauw at gmail.com>> wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>> On Fri, Sep 18, 2015 at 6:31 PM, Martin Isenburg
>> >>> <martin.isenburg at gmail.com <mailto:martin.isenburg at gmail.com>> wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>> > Another curious thing is that I (and the open source license LGPL) was
>> >>> > attacked vehemently in a recent column called "Open Source Mania" by Lewis
>> >>> > Graham that was published in the LiDAR News magazine. Viewer discretion
>> >>> > advised and parental guidance suggested ... you will not like this FUD
>> >>> > attack:
>> >>> >
>> >>> > http://www.lidarmag.com/PDF/LiDARNewsMagazine_Graham-OpenSourceMania_Vol5No4.pdf <http://www.lidarmag.com/PDF/LiDARNewsMagazine_Graham-OpenSourceMania_Vol5No4.pdf>
>> >>> >
>> >>>
>> >>> I read the article and there are a lot of statements there which are false.
>> >>> " if you touch a piece of GPL code with the nine foot pole of
>> >>> launching it with a Python script, that script must now be GPLed"
>> >>> not true
>> >>>
>> >>> "Suppose you have developed some very, very clever algorithm on which
>> >>> you and your university have applied for a patent. If you have coded
>> >>> your algorithm and used any GPL whatsoever, you just GPLed your
>> >>> patent. The patent rights effectively transfer to the Open Software
>> >>> Foundation for free distribution."
>> >>>
>> >>> Completely untrue. The Open Software Foundation does not exist. You
>> >>> don't transfer patent rights at all. A well known counter-example is
>> >>> the algortihm for MP3, where the code (lame) was released under LGPL.
>> >>>
>> >>> I think as OSGeo we should reply to the statements, this is an attack
>> >>> on our community. Perhaps we can ask someone from the Free Software
>> >>> Foundation Europe to help write a response?
>> >>>
>> >>> Kind Regards,
>> >>> Johan
>> >>> _______________________________________________
>> >>> Discuss mailing list
>> >>> Discuss at lists.osgeo.org <mailto:Discuss at lists.osgeo.org>
>> >>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss <http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Jo Cook
>> >> Astun Technology Ltd, The Coach House, 17 West Street, Epsom, Surrey, KT18 7RL, UK
>> >> t:+44 7930 524 155
>> >> iShare - Data integration and publishing platform
>> >>
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>> >>
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>> >
>> >
>> >
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> -- 
> Cameron Shorter,
> Software and Data Solutions Manager
> LISAsoft
> Suite 112, Jones Bay Wharf,
> 26 - 32 Pirrama Rd, Pyrmont NSW 2009
> 
> P +61 2 9009 5000,  W www.lisasoft.com <http://www.lisasoft.com/>,  F +61 2 9009 5099

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