[Incubator] [Fwd: RE: Oracle Spatial and Open Source]

[Frank Warmerdam]

Jody Garnett wrote:
> Chris Holmes wrote:
>> Hmmm... They said the open source requirement basically meant you 
>> can't provide it by GPL.
>>
>> They said they're interested in helping us out, so perhaps we could 
>> see if they could distribute it to us in such a way that we don't need 
>> an extra EULA?
> As it is we give the user a program (the build system) that downloads 
> the file ... does this count as distribution? My best solution would be 
> oracle setting up a maven repository where were our build system can 
> pick it up.

Jody,

Ideally the user would have to download it themselves interactively
so they go through any "acceptance of terms" pages and so forth themselves.
Of course, if Oracle exposes the file for direct download, and it is
the end user hitting the "build" button that fetches it, I suppose it
would put the responsibility on them.

But for a foundation project I don't think we should put users in a
position of possible legal liability without their knowledge.

> As a library figuring out what to do after this is kind of up to each 
> project that uses geotools + oracle. I figure if they are looking at 
> oracle already they have paid for the database and oracle is already 
> happy...

Well, it certainly is our problem to determine whether their license
is valid, etc.

Best regards,
-- 
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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 OSGF, http://osgeo.org