[OSGeo-Discuss] Proposal for the listing of projects in our new web site

[Even Rouault]

Hi Angelos,

thanks for turning those discussions into a positive way forward and your proposal sounds 
good to me. A few comments below.

> 
> I would like to propose a way forward:
> 
> 1. We should *only* promote projects that are somehow affiliated with OSGeo
> (as other Free and Open Source organizations do eg. Apache, Eclipse)

Makes sense. When you promote something on your website, you are somewhat responsible 
for it, so you must ensure that it meets some minimum criteria that are in the "OSGeo spirit"

> A proposal for *new* rules:

> * Has to have an OSI or FSF approved license and be found on the web in a
> public place.

Sounds obvious, but we should probably rephrase that "Source code is released with an OSI 
or FSF approved license and is available on the web in a public place."

I know at least one project that is Apache licensed but released only as binaries, which makes 
it not very convenient to modify :-)

> * Has to be useful on its own with normal data, and NOT require another
> license to really use it

Is it something that is currently required for graduation ? I don't see this criterion mentioned 
in
http://www.osgeo.org/incubator/process/project_graduation_checklist.html

That one is probably tricky to write correctly. Stated like this, that would for example exclude 
a Windows executable, since to use it you must own a Windows license... Even if you take a 
Linux executable that is X/MIT licensed, it links against the GNU libc that is GPL licensed (but 
as GNU libc is considered part of the OS, there's a provision in the GPL license to not apply 
the GPL obligations to the code that links to it). Or if you take a Java program, it must run 
within a JVM that comes with its own license. Same for Python, etc...

But beyond this nitpicking, that criterion can raise more fundamental debates:
* is the intent to exclude projects that would be open-source released plugins of a 
proprietary software for example (the plugin could be an exporter from proprietary formats/
projects to open source ones for example) ?
* Or open-source released projects that would connect to a proprietary server (just saw in 
LWN headlines that Debian is currently debating whether they should allow OSS software 
that connect to proprietary services) ?
* What about a fully open-source project that connects to a proprietary service ?

If I take the exemple of GDAL, the following situations can be found:
* it is X/MIT licensed but can link to a few GPL licensed lib  (poppler, GRASS, ...)
* it can link to proprietrary licensed libs
* it can interact with proprietary services that have a public API, but don't require linking 
against proprietary code
* other/most parts are fully useful on their own

So I think this question alone could deserve its own thread.

> The project should need to officially apply for being included as OSGeo
> Community Project, by answering a questionnaire (including information
> gathering for the web site and provide a point of contact for maintaining
> that information in the future)

+1

Relation question: if OSGeo website promotes a community project, should the website of 
this project  (or github page if no dedicated website) links to OSGeo one ? I'm not even sure 
this is a requirement for a graduated project.

Even


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