[Incubator] motion: qfield recommendation for osgeo community project initiative

[Nick Bearman]

All of the links and details are still valid.

 From 9th May 2023 
https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/incubator/2023-May/004656.html

    This motion did not pass in the allocated time. I would like to ask
    another volunteer to review.

    We had one question come up during voting on license compatibility
    that is
    interesting but may not be suitable for public discussion.

    Jody

The licensing question was: 
https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/incubator/2023-April/004648.html

    I don't get to vote, but I have had a question about qfield for a long
    time that I have never seen an answer for. I am 99% sure I have asked
    about it on one of the qgis lists in the past.

    The license for qgis is GPL2, and qfield has the same license. qfield
    appears to contain qgis code. That's all fine.

    The android app is distributed under GPL2 presumably, but I don't see
    that mentioned in the google play store. That's a minor issue and
    easily fixed, assuming that there aren't proprietary android libraries
    (e.g. Google Play services) bundled in.

    The iOS app is presumably also GPL2, but as I understand it, that's not
    allowed in the apple app store, and the Apple app store's terms prohibit
    redistribution of the app one obtains, which is incompatible with GPL2.
    Often software that was Free before it goes into the Apple app store has
    a special license from the copyright holders to be able to be
    distributed under the non-Free license required by Apple. But with code
    from qgis -- since it has no such exception -- I don't understand how
    this is working.

    Thus, I don't understand the licensing situation. My specific
    questions:

    Is the license for qfield straight GPL2, as the repo indicates, or
    something else?

    Does qfield contain qgis code, such that it's a derived work?

    If so, is qgis straight GPL2?

    Is the Android binary under GPL2, with only Free software as sources?

    Is the iOS binary on gitub under GPL2, with only Free software as
    sources?

    How is the iOS binary being distributed in the Apple app store?

    Thanks,
    Greg

I don't know the details of the licensing question, or whether this is 
still valid.

Therefore I propose to make a motion to accept QField as an OSGeo 
Community Project

The motion is held open for two weeks until Thursday 2 April and
requires at least 50% quorum from the following Committee Members:

|- Angelos Tzotsos - Arnulf Christl - Bob (CI-StPaul) Basques - Brian M 
Hamlin - Daniel Morissette - Dimitris Kotzinos - Frank Warmerdam - Jo 
Cook - Jody Garnett - Michael Smith - Nick Bearman +1 - Regina Obe - 
Steve Lime - Tom Kralidis |

I am happy with this, and am starting with a +1

Thanks
Nick.


On 27/01/2026 17:46, Angelos Tzotsos via Incubator wrote:
> https://gitea.osgeo.org/osgeo/projects-support/issues/9
>
> On 4/21/23 20:34, Jody Garnett wrote:
>> I would like to make a motion:
>>     Recommending QField for the osgeo community project program.
>>
>> The motion is held open for two weeks, until May 5th 2023.
>>
>>     - Bob (CI-StPaul) Basques
>>     - Arnulf Christl
>>     - Jo Cook
>>     - Jody Garnett +1 (initial motion)
>>     - Dimitris Kotzinos
>>     - Tom Kralidis
>>     - Michael Smith
>>     - Steve Lime
>>     - Daniel Morissette
>>     - Frank Warmerdam
>>     - Angelos Tzotsos
>>
>>
>> Checking the project against our requirements
>> <https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Incubation_Committee#Step_2:_Join_Community_Projects_Program> 
>>
>> :
>>
>> 1. Be geospatial
>> - Confirm by checking README or project description
>> - project page on the osgeo website
>> - We ask projects have some user documentation, for example an OSGeo 
>> Live
>> quickstart
>>
>> Most of this was checked for website requirements. There is nice user
>> documentation (https://docs.qfield.org/get-started/).
>>
>>
>> 2. Have a free license or an open source license.
>> - The license must be OSI approved
>> - We ask that the project team check the file headers and double 
>> check the
>> license has been appropriately applied
>>
>> GPL2 is provided in docs 
>> (https://docs.qfield.org/get-started/license/) and
>> source code (https://github.com/opengisch/QField/blob/master/LICENSE).
>>
>> The team has automated check that license is applied (
>> https://github.com/opengisch/QField/blob/master/scripts/licensecheck.pl)
>> which is really cool.
>>
>> 3. Welcome participation and new contributors.
>> - We look for a clear contribution policy
>> - We ask that the project demonstrate collaboration, perhaps with a 
>> history
>> of bug report or pull requests
>> - Projects are required to have a code of conduct
>>
>> Contribution policy (
>> https://github.com/opengisch/QField/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md),
>> collaboration (https://github.com/opengisch/QField/pulls?q=is%3Apr), and
>> code of conduct (
>> https://github.com/opengisch/QField/blob/master/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md) all
>> seem in order.
>>
>> -- 
>> Jody Garnett
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Incubator mailing list
>> Incubator at lists.osgeo.org
>> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/incubator
>
>
-- 
Nick Bearman
+44 (0) 7717745715
nick at nickbearman.com

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