[MetaCRS] [Proj] Common SQLite-based dictionaries

[Even Rouault]

On Monday 03 August 2015 16:25:15 Sebastiaan Couwenberg wrote:
> On 03-08-15 15:37, Howard Butler wrote:
> >> On Aug 3, 2015, at 8:32 AM, Sebastiaan Couwenberg <sebastic at xs4all.nl> 
wrote:
> >>> I recognize there are some things to work through on the EPSG ToS.
> >>> Thanks for bringing these issues up.>> 
> >> For the eventual Debian package this is the most important issue to
> >> resolve. The CSV files distributed with geotiff are split off because
> >> the EPSG ToS is not acceptable for the Debian main repository, the ToS
> >> is incompatible with the Debian Free Software Guidelines and the Open
> >> Source Definition. The ToS discriminates against field of endeavor and
> >> limits derived works via parameter modification restrictions.
> > 
> > Are there some links to discussion about why Debian has made this
> > determination?
> The EPSG ToS was considered non-free by the initial maintainer, and
> noted this in the README for the Debian package:
> 
> "
>  This version of the GeoTIFF library lacks the EPSG data files which
>  are distributed in a separate non-free package libgeotiff-epsg due to
>  license limitations.
> "
> 
> http://anonscm.debian.org/cgit/pkg-grass/libgeotiff-dfsg.git/tree/debian/REA
> DME.Debian
> 
> For libgeotiff 1.4.0 & 1.4.1 I also did a license & copyright review for
> the update of the debian/copyright file with the new machine readable
> format, and I also consider the EPSG ToS to be incompatible with the DFSG:
> 
> https://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines
> 
> If you want the opinion of Debian people other than the package
> maintainers you can contact ftpmaster at ftp-master.debian.org who review
> the license & copyright of new packages before they're accepted into the
> archive. Or the general debian-legal at lists.debian.org list.
> 
> >> If the proposed database derived from the EPSG database is bound by the
> >> non-free EPSG ToS it won't be acceptable for Debian and by extension
> >> Ubuntu.> 
> > I don't see how the situation is any different than it is now. The
> > community can bootstrap its own db, but the amount of expertise required
> > to do so in relation to the "convenience" of simply submitting to EPSG
> > makes it a tough sell.
> The EPSG ToS limitions don't seem to apply to derived subsets as long as
> they aren't attributed to the EPSG Dataset.
> 
> In Debian we consider the derived EPSG data in proj/nad/epsg for example
> to fall under the MIT license of PROJ.4, because these are subsets of
> the EPSG data.
> 
> Martin's proposal to use a different name and not attributing the
> changes to the EPSG Dataset should allow new database to be licensed
> freely (e.g. MIT, or maybe ODbL).

How would that be different from the current libgeotiff-epsg package ? Because 
the later has epsg in its name and the directory is /usr/share/epsg_csv ?

When reading of 6.vii of http://www.epsg.org/TermsOfUse ("No data that has 
been modified other than as permitted in these Terms of Use shall be attributed 
to the EPSG Dataset.") , I'm not clear of what it really allows . Does that 
explicetly mean that we are allowed to do any modification ? But in that case, 
I'm not sure what the associated rights and obligations are.

> 
> Kind Regards,
> 
> Bas

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