[OpenLayers-Dev] Fwd: [OpenLayers-PSC] CLA questions

[Erik Uzureau]

Some concerns that Pierre has brought up regarding the CLA...

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Pierre GIRAUD <pierre.giraud at camptocamp.com>
Date: Jun 23, 2008 5:04 AM
Subject: [OpenLayers-PSC] CLA questions


Dear OpenLayers PSC members,

As already mentioned on the OpenLayers dev mailing list, we have several
questions on the CLA.

We (at camptocamp) had recent contacts with the french National
Geographical Institut (IGN) as they developped a Geoportal API based on
OpenLayers.

They are likely to participate to the the OpenLayers developement and
contribute to the project but they are blocked by legal problems.

To sum up things, IGN developped a Geoportal API recently released under
BSD license and currently relying on OpenLayers 2.5 [1].
There will be a new release based on the 2.6 version soon.
Some of the code they wrote are bug fixes for OpenLayers as well as new
functionnalities that could, for some of them, in their opinion, go into
the trunk. They are expert in geography and they think there could be
much improvements made in OpenLayers, for example, if we want to manage
complex reference systems we often use in Europe.

As they are already doing for other open source GIS softwares (Proj4,
GeoServer, ...), they would be very happy to contribute to OpenLayers.
But, they (public company) aren't currently ready to give contributor
agreements to Metacarta (private company). Since OpenLayers is an OSGEO
project and they are likely to become an OSGEO sponsor (not official
yet), they would prefer the CLA beneficiary to be the foundation itself.
Anyway, the Metacarta copyright affiliation is still something to be
studied in detail by their jurists.
Since then, IGN asked camptocamp to assist them and become the interface
to find the best solution.

For now, here are summarized the IGN developers willings :
 - contribute to OpenLayers the same way they are already doing for
other open source projects (directly or by proposing patches),
 - avoid the issues encountered with OpenSpace (Ordonance Survey) (ie.
no bug fixes proposed, no functionalities given back to OL),
 - try to get the OpenLayers and IGN GeoPortal to become the standard
for most of the European national geographical institutes geoportals.

If required, we can plan an IRC meeting on july.

I hope you can help us all.

Regards,
Pierre

ps: in Cc of this mail, there are people from camptocamp (including OL
commiters as well as managers) and, Didier Richard representing IGN (for
the technical part).

[1] https://api.ign.fr/geoportail/

--
_________________________________________________________
Pierre GIRAUD
Géomaticien, Analyste

Camptocamp France SAS
Savoie Technolac, BP 352
73377 Le Bourget du Lac, Cedex

Tel : 00 33 4 79 44 44 93
Mail : pierre.giraud at camptocamp.com
http://www.camptocamp.com

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