[Incubator] Mapbender Incubator Process

[Rich Steele]

Frank Warmerdam wrote:

> Beyond the karmic benefit, my thinking was that by giving the original
> author credit in the file, we show a certain seriousness about keeping
> track of the history of our code.  So, for instance, when I apply a
> license to previously public domain code I generally add that as a
note
> in the header area in case a question comes up in the future.

Agreed.

>  > For those, like GDAL and Proj.4 in MapGuide
> > Enterprise, we have typically just reproduced the required notices
in a
> > LICENSE.htm file in the source code.
> 
> What required notices are you referring to?  The GDAL license reads:
> 
>   * 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.
> 
> When it says "the above copyright notice and this permission notice
shall
> be
> included in all copies or substantial portions of the software"  I
have
> always
> read that to mean that you can't strip the copyright/license notice
out of
> the source code.  I have never taken that to mean that users of GDAL
were
> required to reproduce the notice in any user readable location.  In
fact,
> the old BSD license did have this requirement and this is considered a
> very
> dangerous requirement since it is not always easy to comply with.

Yes, I am referring to that copyright and permission notice.  The
requirement that the notices "be included in all copies or substantial
copies of the software" means just that.  We certainly do this with
MIT-licensed code, as do others (see e.g.,
http://www.paradigmsim.com/support/sc_view/Vega_Prime_Release_Notes_2.0.
2.pdf for another corporate user (and attributor) of Proj.4).

Here's what one well known company does in providing third party
attributions in all of its various products:
http://www.macromedia.com/software/eula/third_party/

The BSD clause you are referring to was different.  It required that all
*advertising* of the product had to include reference to the University
of California.  Very problematic to say the least.  See
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html.

 
> In fact, in my GDAL review I have identified a few bits of code with
> credit
> requirements and I have marked these for further consideration since I
am
> clearly not currently complying with this request, and it is a lot to
ask
> of all GDAL applications to add a bunch of extra notices.

I think if you are not reproducing the notices, then strictly speaking
you are not complying with the license.  Since this is really the only
requirement of the MIT license, it isn't a lot to ask for free software.
My friend Heather wrote a good overview of the Notices conundrum:
http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/48494.html
 
> > We also link to a third party
> > notices file from the about box of the executable.
> >
> > The two LGPL'd libraries (phpmailer and javascript vectorgraphics)
can
> > be handled similarly, although the LGPL requirements are slightly
> > different.
> 
> I'm a bit confused.  Mapbender is LGPL, right?  And these items are
LGPL?
> Is there an incompatibility here?  I wouldn't have thought that
Mapbender
> would need to do anything special at all to incorporate other LGPL
code.

Sorry, I thought MapBender was GPL. 
http://www.mapbender.org/index.php/GNU_GPL

In any event, yes, the license is compatible whether it is GPL or LGPL.
However, don't confuse license compatibility with license requirements.
Just because you can combine MIT licensed code with GPL licensed code
doesn't mean, for example, that you don't still have to include the MIT
copyright statement.

> I don't mean to belabour fine points here, but I think these
discussions
> can be quite helpful to other projects in incubation, including my
own.

Not at all belabouring.  I agree this is helpful to walk through.

-Rich