[gdal-dev] change in ECW license agreement

[Frank Warmerdam]

Matt Wilkie wrote:
> Hello Folks,
> 
> In recent discussion with a sales representative ER Mapper, now owned by
> Leica Geosystems Geospatial Imaging, it came to light that there is a
> new End User License Agreement in effect for the ECW/JP2 SDK, as of this
> week. (I'm trying to determine what license we need to buy in order to
> use gdal_translate to create ecw larger than 500mb).
> 
> The new EULA mentions open source projects specifically in a couple of
> provisions.  I'm not going to go so far as to interpret them, because
> I'll probably get it wrong! From my limited understanding it does look
> like some things might need to be changed in how GDAL packages and
> distributes the ECW driver, and that an organisation which uses open
> source ecw-using tools to produce products it sells might be considered
> commercial use(?).
> 
> In any case, there are people here who the changes will impact and would
> want to be aware of it. If the attached document does not make it
> through, the EULA can be found at
> http://www.ermapper.com/Downloads.aspx?v=315 (after free registration,
> the EULA will be shown before download begins).

Matt,

I'm not a lawyer, and don't want to give legal advice or interpretation
on the license either.  But clearly this is a substantial retreat from
the licensing terms available for the 3.3 beta release which I will
continue to use under the old terms.   At some point I might review the
old license terms, and see how practical it would be to operate a
"nearly open source" fork based on the old terms.

I don't find the "non commercial" terms very useful, though the intent
does seem to be to provide decoding for free with some attached
conditions.

/me sighs.

Best regards,
-- 
---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
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