Motion: include AGG freetype (2.4 version) in MapServer

[Howard Butler]

On Aug 13, 2007, at 1:02 PM, Sean Gillies wrote:

> Howard Butler wrote:
>> All,
>> I've come around to thinking that the only way we can limit the   
>> configuration/building issues we are about to inflict on our  
>> users  with AGG is to include the freetype stuff in MapServer's  
>> source.  It  seems many of the distros are treating the AGG  
>> freetype  inconsistently.  Just building AGG because of its  
>> spartan build setup  is quite a chore.  Hacking makefiles, compile  
>> targets, and link lines  to get what is needed is just too much.
>> I propose we take the GDAL "thirdparty" approach and put the AGG   
>> freetype stuff in ./thirdparty/agg and update MapServer's  
>> configure/ make system to always use that.  We have done something  
>> similar in  the past with GD, right?  If so, this approach would  
>> not be  unprecedented.
>> Howard
>
> I disagree. One of the tenets of Open Source is that people  
> collaborate on software and fork only as a last resort. Why not  
> contribute improvements to AntiGrain? I thought I read that the  
> author was going to grant a GPL exception explicitly to MapServer.
>

Someone please correct me if I am wrong, but my reasoning for this  
motion is as follows:

  - AGG will never be mainlining the freetype stuff because it  
doesn't want it as a default dependency
  - The AGG author doesn't want to use autoconf/libtool, so patches  
that we might submit to make building things with options more easy  
are likely to rejected.
  - AGG's license split (and ambiguity with respect to MapServer  
specifically) and MapServer's usage where GPL isn't appropriate means  
we'll have a not insignificant number of people continuing to use AGG  
2.4, where patches like this, even if accepted, would not apply to them.
  - It is a lesser evil (in terms of work required and badwill  
generated) to just maintain a small copy of the freetype stuff than  
to fork *all* of AGG at 2.4.  Some other group may yet do this (I  
have no direct knowledge).  It almost happened a number of times with  
libgd before Boutell let PHP pick it up.

Howard