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

[Venkatesh Raghavan]

Hi Angelos and Even,

Thanks for enlightening us with  very thoughtful and pertinent points
and comments.

It would be great to have a broader view on this
and hope to hear from others in our community.

Best

Venka

P.S. Even, congratulations on your 10 years + 2 days since
your first commit to GDAL project!! Many thanks!

On 8/19/2017 9:39 PM, Even Rouault wrote:
> 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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