MapGuide fork of AGG

Stephen Woodbridge woodbri at SWOODBRIDGE.COM
Wed Oct 24 10:00:46 EDT 2007 

Dave,

I'm not a lawyer, but that would be my interpretation also. As soon as 
you bundle a GPL product it will taint all down stream products with the 
GPL. I think the comments that were made about AGG 2.5 "not being a 
problem" were related to an end-user building a mapserver with that for 
use on their server, which should not be a problem. It only becomes a 
problem when and if you want to distribute it. In that case you want to 
avoid adding in any GPL'd parts. I would think this would have an impact 
on mapscript products like Chameleon and any products that rely on or 
link with mapserver.

I think it is very important that we keep Mapserver under its current 
licensing.

-Steve W.

Dave McIlhagga wrote:
> Ok - let me rephrase that. Does that mean when distributing MapServer 
> with AGG 2.5, in that instance all of that code (including the MapServer 
> source code) would have to be distributed via a GPL license.
> 
> Does that also then mean that any users who are bundling MapServer today 
> in proprietary solutions could not do so with this build?
> 
> Does this mean that if other 3rd party proprietary components are 
> included in a distributed build that they too would be subject to 
> availability via GPL?
> 
> If the above are true - I can think of a few pretty significant 
> instances where this decision could be pretty big problems.
> 
> Dave
> 
> 
> On 24-Oct-07, at 1:09 AM, Stephen Woodbridge wrote:
> 
>> Dave McIlhagga wrote:
>>> So this means effectively we're looking at a relicensing of MapServer 
>>> as GPL?
>>
>> I would hope not!
>>
>> I think that what this means is that the license of derivative works 
>> will depend on what libraries the user builds them with. If the user 
>> builds an executable with AGG 2.5 then that executable and all down 
>> stream works from that would be GPL.
>>
>> The Mapserver source will remain under its current license. If 
>> mapserver ever decided to change the licensing to GPL, that would most 
>> like cause a fork, just as AGG 2.4 and 2.5+ are going to be forked in 
>> the sense that people that do not want GPL will stay on 2.4 and 
>> eventually if anyone wants to add features or fixes to that it will 
>> probably need to be forked and maintained out of a separate source 
>> tree unless other arrangements can be made with the author/maintainer.
>>
>> -Steve
>>
>>> Dave
>>> On 23-Oct-07, at 3:28 PM, Steve Lime wrote:
>>>> I think this is a pretty good synopsis, thanks for providing it. I'd 
>>>> add
>>>> that I don't see
>>>> a big problem with AGG 2.5 and a GPL license and MapServer either.
>>>>
>>>> As Paul Ramsey pointed out back in November:
>>>>
>>>> "For AGG, you'll be linking to a GPL library, which means you won't be
>>>> able to distribute BSD binaries anymore -- any binary linked against
>>>> AGG will have to go out under the GPL. Basically, if you only care
>>>> about Mapserver as an open source product, it's no problem, but if
>>>> you have any plans to distribute altered versions as closed source,
>>>> you cannot do it with the AGG dependency turned on."
>>>>
>>>> I'd rather see the MapGuide and MapServer folks (along with the other
>>>> open source
>>>> projects that use AGG) work with Maxim to fix build issues if
>>>> possible.
>>>>
>>>> Steve
>>>>
>>>>>>> On 10/23/2007 at 3:06 AM, in message
>>>> <d2b988930710230106m71bff5aboa4b6b1a1c9b77546 at mail.gmail.com>, thomas
>>>> bonfort
>>>> <thomas.bonfort at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>>>>> On 10/23/07, Paul Spencer <pspencer at dmsolutions.ca> wrote:
>>>>>> Steve, Daniel, I encourage you to voice your opinions on the
>>>> mapguide
>>>>>> internals list ... the more the better.  I would love to see some
>>>>>> collaboration between mapguide and mapserver at this level.  It
>>>> seems
>>>>>> like easy common ground to get started talking together.
>>>>>
>>>>> hi all,
>>>>>
>>>>> I've been thinking about the pros and cons of having an osgeo fork
>>>> of
>>>>> AGG, from a mapserver point of view but I think most of it applies
>>>> to
>>>>> mapguide too.
>>>>>
>>>>> pro:
>>>>> * the agg build process is a pain for the users, as the agg
>>>> makefiles
>>>>> need some modifications before some of the mapscript components can
>>>>> run. I see two issues that have to be fixed in this field:
>>>>> - the freetype font manager isn't included in the default built.
>>>> This
>>>>> is by design and not a bug, so any fixes on this end will never be
>>>>> backported to the official 2.4+ agg branches ( at least imho )
>>>>> - makefiles and configure logic should include the ability to build
>>>>> position independant code (-fPIC). I don't think fixes for this
>>>> would
>>>>> be included in the official agg releases, as I think the aim is to
>>>>> have agg build by just typing 'make' and not having to configure
>>>>> anything
>>>>>
>>>>> this could push us to have an osgeo tarball of agg 2.4 , with these
>>>>> few glitches fixed. I don't know if we can call that a fork, but
>>>> this
>>>>> at least allows us to keep a bsd compatible version secure whatever
>>>>> happens on the agg side, and a place to point the endusers at
>>>> if/when
>>>>> they encounter build problems.
>>>>>
>>>>> cons:
>>>>> * do any folks at osgeo have the incentive and/or knowledge to
>>>>> continue on agg development? backporting fixes should be easy to do
>>>>> (for the time being this is useless as maxim of agg is still
>>>>> maintaining 2.4 - this might not last for long though), but keeping
>>>> up
>>>>> with features of 2.5+ (when and if they come) seems unfeasible for
>>>> non
>>>>> specialist people (without resorting to blindly backporting agg
>>>>> trunk's changes which seems a rather lame thing to do given maxim's
>>>>> wish in change of license)
>>>>> * this is mapserver specific, and I may be completely wrong here,
>>>> but
>>>>> it seems to me that the agg license change isn't a deal breaker for
>>>>> us. folks can continue "using" an agg-gpl enabled mapserver, and the
>>>>> businesses who are reselling modified/bundled/etc versions of
>>>>> mapserver can either continue with the gd-only version, or pay up
>>>> for
>>>>> a commercial agg license. I didn't follow the discussions when pdf
>>>>> support was added, but pdflib is far more constraining than agg in
>>>> the
>>>>> sense you have to pay a license for /any/ commercial use.
>>>>>
>>>>>> In particular, I think mapserver could benefit from Traian's
>>>>>> modifications for rendering into a different buffer to solve the
>>>>>> alpha problems and for the rendering on transparent background
>>>> thing.
>>>>>>
>>>>> after sorting this out off-list with Traian, it turns out that there
>>>>> is no bug in the agg blending functions, just a mixup in which
>>>>> blenders to use and what ouptut they are supposed to generate
>>>>>
>>>>> just my .02€
>>>>>
>>>>> thomas
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 22-Oct-07, at 2:12 PM, Steve Lime wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> This should be a nice mess, especially if there is a broader
>>>>>>> community fork of AGG 2.4. I'm curious
>>>>>>> why a fork is even necessary? The RFC doesn't go into any detail.
>>>>>>> The one piece of code mentioned
>>>>>>> in the thread certainly doesn't necessitate a fork.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Steve
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> On 10/20/2007 at 12:11 PM, in message <471A36AC.
>>>>>>>>>> 8090403 at mapgears.com>, Daniel
>>>>>>> Morissette <dmorissette at MAPGEARS.COM> wrote:
>>>>>>>> MapServer Dev's
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> This is just a heads up that MapGuide has a RFC open right now
>>>> about
>>>>>>>> adding support for AGG rendering, and as part of that they plan
>>>> to
>>>>>>>> fork
>>>>>>>> AGG 2.4 and make some improvements to it:
>>>>>>>>    http://trac.osgeo.org/mapguide/wiki/MapGuideRfc40
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> A few people have already suggested on the mapguide-internals
>>>> list
>>>>>>>> that
>>>>>>>> they do that in a way that other OSGeo projects such as MapServer
>>>> can
>>>>>>>> benefit from the improved version. Interested parties can review
>>>> the
>>>>>>>> thread in the archives at
>>>>>>>> http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/mapguide-internals/2007-October/
>>>>
>>>>>>>> 001922.html
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Daniel
>>>>>>
>>>>>> +-----------------------------------------------------------------+
>>>>>> |Paul Spencer                          pspencer at dmsolutions.ca    |
>>>>>> +-----------------------------------------------------------------+
>>>>>> |Chief Technology Officer                                         |
>>>>>> |DM Solutions Group Inc                http://www.dmsolutions.ca/ |
>>>>>> +-----------------------------------------------------------------+
>>>>>>
>>

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