[geos-devel] Porting recent JTS contributions to GEOS

[Bas Couwenberg]

On 2017-03-16 12:21, Even Rouault wrote:
> On jeudi 16 mars 2017 09:48:44 CET Bas Couwenberg wrote:
>> On 2017-03-16 09:42, Sandro Santilli wrote:
>> > On Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 09:41:12AM +0100, Bas Couwenberg wrote:
>> >> On 2017-03-16 09:38, Sandro Santilli wrote:
>> >> >I don't know why JTS copyright holders wanted to "eclipse" their
>> >> >license...
>> >>
>> >> IIRC LocationTech requires projects under its umbrella to use
>> >> permissive
>> >> licenses to be more business friendly.
>> >
>> > We can see it's not being that friendly to our "business", is it ?
>> 
>> Correct. But it is more friendly to GPL averse big businesses like 
>> Apple
>> and co. While Apple is not a member of LocationTech, Google and Oracle
>> are and there are also not know to be fond of copyleft licenses.
> 
> What would be the problem of GEOS incorporating EPL derived code ? EPL 
> is not
> incompatible with LGPL, is it ? GEOS could be a mix of LGPL + EPL,
> couldn't it ? People would
> have to respect the requirements of both licences.

The EPL is incompatible with the GPL at least [0], the compatibility 
with the LGPL is not as clear.

GEOS incorporating JTS code would make it a derivative work, and require 
the code in GEOS be under the EPL as well.

Only clean-room implementations of JTS features can be incorporated in 
GEOS without triggering license incompatibilities.

[0] https://eclipse.org/legal/eplfaq.php#GPLCOMPATIBLE

Disclaimer: IANAL, getting advice from the FSF or Software Freedom 
Conservancy is a good idea.

Kind Regards,

Bas