[Incubator] Recommend pycsw Graduation

[Angelos Tzotsos]

Thanks Cameron,

I have added the following text to the Graduation Checklist 
(https://github.com/geopython/pycsw/wiki/Project-Graduation-Checklist) 
under the Copyright and License section:

* One outstanding issue with OGC schemas: The OGC schemas are included 
in pycsw to validate incoming XML requests. The OGC schemas are licensed 
under the terms of the OGC Document Notice or under the terms of OGC 
Software Notice according to the legalfaq 
(http://www.opengeospatial.org/ogc/legalfaq#DTD): "Schemas (and DTDs) 
are frequently part of our specifications and seemingly fall under the 
document copyright terms. However, as long as you do not use the same 
formal namespace or public identifier to identify that modified OGC 
schema/DTD (which might confuse applications), you may treat the 
schema/DTD under the software terms. This means that you are permitted 
to make a derivative or modified OGC schema/DTD, but even under the 
software terms you are obligated to include/retain the OGC copyright 
notice. We further appreciate a couple sentences regarding who made the 
modifications, when, and what changes were made in the original DTD -- a 
common software documentation practice." This was found incompatible 
with the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG), which strictly 
considers schemas to fall under the document copyright terms (not free 
to modify), thus pycsw package was rejected from Debian. On the other 
hand, since pycsw only uses the schemas for validation and does not 
publish them online, we use the second clause of the OGC legalfaq and we 
consider schemas to fall under the software copyright terms 
(modifications are allowed). We have included the OGC copyright notice 
(https://github.com/geopython/pycsw/blob/master/pycsw/schemas/ogc/OGC-SOFTWARE-NOTICE.txt) 
and a note of how we use the OGC schemas 
(https://github.com/geopython/pycsw/blob/master/pycsw/schemas/ogc/README.txt). 
Furthermore, pycsw has been accepted in openSUSE, Fedora, Ubuntu and 
OSGeoLive without any legal objections. For more information see:

   - https://github.com/geopython/pycsw/issues/306
   - https://github.com/geopython/pycsw/pull/313
   - http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/standards/2015-February/000842.html
   - 
http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-grass-devel/2014-November/024520.html
   - http://www.opengeospatial.org/ogc/document
   - http://www.opengeospatial.org/ogc/software


I hope the above addresses the issue until a better solution comes from 
the OSGeo, OGC, DebianGIS discussion.

Best,
Angelos


On 02/16/2015 12:20 AM, Cameron Shorter wrote:
> Thanks Angelos,
> If this description is included, or referenced from incubation
> documentation, that I'd consider that this items is addressed.
>
> On Mon, Feb 16, 2015 at 8:23 AM, Angelos Tzotsos<gcpp.kalxas at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>   Hi Cameron,
>>
>> The outstanding issues from the pycsw Provenance Review are:
>>
>> 1. The OSGeoLive pycsw installer script was maintained in pycsw source
>> tree before pushing changes to OSGeoLive. Since the license for the
>> installer is LGPL, there is a conflict.
>> I just removed the installer from the pycsw tree. It is *not* used by
>> pycsw. Problem solved.
>> https://github.com/geopython/pycsw/issues/302
>>
>> 2. The OGC schemas are included in pycsw to validate incoming XML
>> requests. This discussion started when we pushed pycsw as a package to
>> Debian. Debian developers identified the license problem and reported back
>> to us. There is a discussion between OSGeo, OGC and  DebianGIS on standards
>> mailing list and we hope this will be resolved soon, not only for pycsw but
>> also for various other OSGeo projects (both graduated and not) that include
>> OGC schemas in their code tree.
>> https://github.com/geopython/pycsw/issues/306
>> Thanks Sebastiaan for this excellent e-mail with many details on this
>> issue:
>> http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/standards/2015-February/000842.html
>>
>> Just to be clear: there is no library conflict in pycsw, the source code
>> is clean.
>>
>> Best,
>> Angelos
>>
>> On 02/15/2015 09:37 PM, Cameron Shorter wrote:
>>
>> Hi Angelos,
>> I'd suggest that it is ok to have outstanding issues with the provenance
>> review, so long as each issue has an acceptable workaround.
>> Eg: if there is a conflict with a license of an included library, then the
>> work around could be to download the library separately.
>> There should also be a statement about what the project plans are around
>> the issue. Maybe you are planning to rewrite the library, or maybe you are
>> approaching the library authors to get access to the code under another
>> license.
>>
>> Thanks for addressing the other issues.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Angelos Tzotsos
>> Remote Sensing Laboratory
>> National Technical University of Athenshttp://users.ntua.gr/tzotsos
>>
>>


-- 
Angelos Tzotsos
Remote Sensing Laboratory
National Technical University of Athens
http://users.ntua.gr/tzotsos