[Incubator] Initiating the process for R-Spatial to become an OSGeo community project

[Jody Garnett]

Wanted to check back in Edzer, we have our foss4g conference coming up and
it would be great to see R part of the party.
--
Jody Garnett


On Thu, 8 Jul 2021 at 14:57, Jody Garnett <jody.garnett at gmail.com> wrote:

> Edzer:
>
> I have setup "edzer" with "project author" permissions to create a project
> on the osgeo website, when you have something ready (or need any assistance
> figuring out wordpress) let us know. The page for service providers
> <https://www.osgeo.org/community/getting-started-osgeo/add-service-provider/>
> is a good example of how everything is broken into tabs.
>
> Having a dual license (MIT and GPL-2) is just fine and can really be used
> to reflect your participants values etc.... Indeed a dual license
> approaches can be very valuable as each encourages a different balance of
> responsibility and assurances.
>
> Examples for your team:
>
>    - The JTS project has a dual license (LICENSE.md
>    <https://github.com/locationtech/jts/blob/master/LICENSES.md>) of BSD
>    (permissive license promoting wide adoption) and Eclipse License (promoting
>    some projection against patents and so forth). This is a good example of
>    how to do a dual license.
>    - When you have a dual license approach some care is needed in
>    accepting contributions from others: As an example we have run into the
>    GeoServer project which as GPL (with a small exception allowing some
>    eclipse license code). Normally we collect a CLA for all contributions (so
>    we have the ability to donate code to other projects like GeoTools and
>    JTS). Recently some folks collected some code that was abandoned and the
>    original authors were no longer available to sign a CLA. The result is our
>    codebase now has some extensions with LICENSE.md files in specific
>    directories.
>    - It can also be a challenge to communicate what is going on when
>    working with a codebase that has collected influence from different
>    sources.  I just updated the GeoTools codebase with its core LGPL
>    LICENSE.md <https://github.com/geotools/geotools/blob/main/LICENSE.md>,
>    followed by a clear notice
>    <https://github.com/geotools/geotools/blob/main/licenses/README.md> describing
>    listing all the individual licenses
>    <https://github.com/geotools/geotools/tree/main/licenses> for content
>    we have collected from the internet. As an example the project includes the
>    EPSG database so EPSG.md
>    <https://github.com/geotools/geotools/blob/main/licenses/EPSG.md> is
>    there as a data distribution license.
>
> While the authoritative place for distribution may be CRAN, the source
> code that generates the work is what would be reviewed when auditing a
> codebase. Having the license information alongside your code is consistent
> with the GPL-2 header "*You should have received a copy of the GNU
> General Public License along with this program*" snippet, and protects
> your ass-ets.
>
> Licenses are all about communicating intent, by choosing github as your
> forge it is best to follow their conventions for communicating license
> information to avoid confusion.
>
> Although we are focused on the source code (being an open source
> foundation), your distribution via CRAN (
> https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/sf/index.html) is ... incomplete:
>
> 1) link to LICENSE: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/sf/LICENSE is
> just a copyright declaration
>
> *YEAR: 2016-2020*
> *COPYRIGHT HOLDER: Edzer Pebesma*
>
>
> 2) link to GPL-2: https://cran.r-project.org/web/licenses/GPL-2 seems okay
> 3) link to MIT: https://cran.r-project.org/web/licenses/MIT has not yet
> filled in the MIT license (just has the template):
>
> Based on http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT
>
> *This is a template. Complete and ship as file LICENSE the following 2*
> *lines (only)*
>
> *YEAR:*
> *COPYRIGHT HOLDER: *
>
> *and specify as*
>
> *License: MIT + file LICENSE*
>
> *Copyright (c) <YEAR>, <COPYRIGHT HOLDER>*
>
> *Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining*
> *a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the*
> *"Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including*
> *without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,*
> *distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to*
> *permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to*
> *the following conditions:*
>
> *The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be*
> *included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.*
>
> *THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,*
> *EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF*
> *MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND*
> *NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE*
> *LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION*
> *OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION*
> *WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.*
>
> --
> Jody Garnett
>
>
> On Thu, 1 Jul 2021 at 13:35, Edzer Pebesma <edzer.pebesma at uni-muenster.de>
> wrote:
>
>> Dear Jody, thanks for your efforts and positive response!
>>
>> I'll try to answer your questions:
>>
>>  > Q: What is the project license for sf? Can you clearly indicate it in
>> a LICENSE.md file? Or would that mess up your build?
>>
>> The licence is MIT or GPL-2; I guess that that effectively means MIT,
>> but trying to express appreciation when others share modifications
>> they'd redistribute.
>>
>> It wouldn't be a problem to add LICENSE.md, I didn't do that because the
>> authoritative place for released versions is CRAN, which has a landing
>> page for each CRAN package; the one for sf is:
>> https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/sf/index.html where you can see
>> that the licenses are listed with to their corresponding texts. If I
>> would add a LICENSE.md, it duplicates and could be one more source for
>> confusion. This is also the reason we don't do github tags or releases,
>> as CRAN archives all releases; look for "Old sources", which in this
>> case points to all CRAN releases of sf:
>> https://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/Archive/sf/
>>
>> For most R developers, github is a convenience, but CRAN is the place
>> where we release, and where information is complete.
>>
>>
>>  > Q: What is your osgeo id? So you can be setup with website access to
>> make a project page
>>
>> My osgeo ID is edzer
>>
>> Many regards,
>> --
>> Edzer Pebesma
>> Institute for Geoinformatics
>> Heisenbergstrasse 2, 48151 Muenster, Germany
>> Phone: +49 251 8333081
>>
>>
>>
>> Previous message:
>>
>> First up it is great to see such a strong R community, I have even seen
>> presentations on the *sf* in my local university down "geogeeks" meetup
>> (back when we could you know meet up).
>>
>> I was checking in to see if you had made any progress towards an osgeo
>> project page, and I did not see anything yet...
>>
>> Checking your github repositories such as https://github.com/r-spatial/sf
>>
>> 1 Be geospatial
>> - README.md clearly spatial topic :)
>>
>> 2. Have a free license or open source license
>> - sf LICENSE <-- does not actually list an open source license (so you
>> would trick github license detection)
>> - mapview was clearly GPL
>> - Searching the codebase shows
>> https://github.com/r-spatial/sf/blob/master/DESCRIPTION#L50 indicating
>> some
>> combination of MIT and GPL (what is your thought here?)
>>
>> 3. Welcome participation and new contributors.
>> - Well I have personally experienced your enthusiastic community, ... but
>> this is a bit more focused on having a policy for things like pull
>> requests.
>> - Massive number of closed pull requests from a wide range of contributors
>> - For sf I did not find a CONTRIBUTING.md file (shown to folks making a
>> pull request) but the README has heading about contributing which is great
>>
>> So this looks okay, but I have questions:
>>
>> Q: What is the project license for sf? Can you clearly indicate it in a
>> LICENSE.md file? Or would that mess up your build?
>> Q: What is your osgeo id? So you can be setup with website access to make
>> a
>> project page
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Jody Garnett
>>
>>
>> On Mon, 22 Feb 2021 at 06:21, Robin Lovelace <rob00x at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>  > We would like to apply, as the 'R-Spatial' community, to become an
>> OSGeo
>>  > affiliated organisation.
>>  >
>>  > We are a diverse group with a shared interest in developing free and
>> open
>>  > tools for the reproducible analysis of geographic data. R is a
>> popular and
>>  > rapidly growing language for statistical computing and 'data science'.
>> It
>>  > is already part of the OSGeo ecosystem: the OSGeo Live distribution
>> ships
>>  > with R <
>> https://github.com/OSGeo/OSGeoLive/blob/master/bin/install_R.sh>
>>  > and R integrates with established OSGeo projects such as GRASS GIS
>>  > <https://grasswiki.osgeo.org/wiki/R_statistics>, SAGA
>>  > <https://cran.r-project.org/package=RSAGA> and QGIS
>>  > <https://docs.qgis.org/3.16/en/docs/>. R tutorials (which would
>> benefit
>>  > from being updated) are listed on the tutorials listed on OSGeo's old
>>  > website <http://old.www.osgeo.org/educational_content>. We would like
>> to
>>  > update existing content and create new OSGeo-affiliated tutorials for
>> using
>>  > R-Spatial software. Many R-Spatial projects have support from the R
>>  > Consortium <https://www.r-consortium.org/>, opening the possibility of
>>  > stronger links between R and OSGeo at an organisational level.
>>  >
>>  > After a discussion on our GitHub Organisation at github.com/r-spatial,
>> it
>>  > is clear that closer links could be mutually beneficial. Collaboration
>> is
>>  > at the heart of open source software and the R community has a long
>>  > history. The history of R-GRASS GIS bridges, for example, covers more
>> than 20
>>  > years <https://doi.org/10.1016/S0098-3004(00)00057-1> and goes in both
>>  > directions. R interfaces enable a wide range of people to access
>>  > OSGeo-supported software from a reproducible command-line interface.
>>  >
>>  > Continued development and innovation in R-OSGeo links are illustrated
>> the
>>  > qgisprocess <https://github.com/paleolimbot/qgisprocess> package,
>> which
>>  > motivated positive changes in the QGIS source code (see
>>  > github.com/paleolimbot/qgisprocess/issues/21). The R-Spatial community
>>  > relies on the OSGeo projects GDAL, PROJ and GEOS for data access and
>>  > geographic operations. Core R-Spatial packages sf, raster and terra use
>>  > bindings to the libraries for much of the heavy lifting and many
>> thousands
>>  > of people using R for spatial research (often without knowing) run
>> OSGeo
>>  > support code every day. We would like to support the ongoing work of
>> these
>>  > vital components of the wider community that is represented by the
>>  > OSGeo-affiliated conference series FOSS4G. We also anticipate
>> benefits from
>>  > being part of the wider OSGeo community and would like to be more
>> active
>>  > members of the wider movement advocating free and open source
>> software for
>>  > geospatial.
>>  >
>>  > 'R-Spatial' can be loosely defined as the ecosystem of code, projects
>> and
>>  > people using R for working with and adding value to spatial data. A
>>  > manifestation of the wider R-Spatial community is the friendly,
>> vibrant and
>>  > diverse range of voices using the #rspatial
>>  > <https://twitter.com/search?q=%23rspatial> tag on Twitter. For the
>>  > purposes of OSGeo supported *software* projects however, we define
>>  > R-Spatial as the packages found at https://github.com/r-spatial/
>> (which
>>  > includes sf, stars, mapview, gstat, spdep and many other popular
>> packages
>>  > for working with spatial data) and https://github.com/rspatial/ (which
>>  > includes packages raster and terra). A (possibly incomplete) list with
>> R
>>  > packages that directly link to OSGEO libraries is found here
>>  >
>> <
>> https://github.com/r-spatial/discuss/wiki/R-packages-that-use-the-OSGEO-stack-in-System-Requirements
>> :>.
>>  > Thousands of R packages depend on these packages one way or another.
>>  >
>>  > We would like to initiate the process needed for R-Spatial to
>> eventually
>>  > become an OSGeo community project, by achieving the first two of the
>> three
>>  > steps as outlined on the Incubation Committee web page
>>  >
>> <
>> https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Incubation_Committee#Step_1:_Add_OSGeo_Website_Project_Page
>> >
>>  > :
>>  >
>>  >    - We would like to create an OSGeo web page with information about
>> key
>>  >    packages in the 'R-spatial stack', including how they relate to
>> OSGeo
>>  >    projects
>>  >    - We would like to become an OSGeo Community Project
>>  >
>> <
>> https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Incubation_Committee#Step_2:_Join_Community_Projects_Program
>> >
>>  >
>>  > All the best,
>>  >
>>  > R-Spatial developers and contributors, including: Robin Lovelace, Roger
>>  > Bivand, Edzer Pebesma, Tim Appelhans, Robert Hijmans, Jakub Nowosad,
>> Nick
>>  > Bearman, Emmanuel Blondel, Andy Teucher, Marynia Kolak, Timothée
>> Giraud,
>>  > Ahmadou Dicko, Andrea Gilardi, Lorena Abad, Martijn Tennekes
>>  > _______________________________________________
>>  > Incubator mailing list
>>  > Incubator at lists.osgeo.org
>>  > https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/incubator
>>  >
>> _______________________________________________
>> Incubator mailing list
>> Incubator at lists.osgeo.org
>> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/incubator
>>
>
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