[osgeo4w-dev] Click through proprietary licensing

[Jeff McKenna]

I don't have a problem with having users click through license text 
during the postinstall if the user selects such a package.  The 
challenges will be modifying the cygwin setup code to make this happen 
of course.

-jeff



On 10-11-12 12:18 PM, Frank Warmerdam wrote:
> Folks,
>
> We have come to the conclusion that we can't really distribute the OCI
> (oracle client interface) libraries as an OSGeo4W package without forcing
> people to agree to a click through license first.
>
> Howard and I were discussing the possibility of implementing a mechanism
> in the OSGeo4W package manager to present custom license text for a package
> and force the user to decide if they are willing to comply with it before
> a package is installed.
>
> There are some technical challenges to making this work, but I'm really
> writing today to ask this community how it feels about inclusion of
> proprietary software in OSGeo4W and putting click-through licenses in front
> of people.
>
> I personally have a few concerns.
>
> 1) It pisses me off to feel I'm having to bend over backwards to help
> proprietary software vendors assert their rights over OSGeo4W users.
>
> 2) We really ought to become more aware of the implications of mixing
> proprietary software and GPLed software in OSGeo4W. For instance, it is
> not legal for us to distribute proprietary software that would be used
> by a GPLed package like GRASS. In fact we are likely already in violation
> of this when GRASS uses the MrSID driver (though Lizardtech bent over
> backwards to make sure we didn't have to put our users through a click
> through license for it).
>
> On the other hand, OSGeo has taken the position of building bridges between
> proprietary and free software. In particular of being supportive of things
> like being able to use MapServer against proprietary databases, supporting
> proprietary file formats and such. So I don't feel that including such
> bridges in our distributed packages is unreasonable.
>
> Also, I am keen to provide the best user experience I reasonably can for
> OSGeo4W users and being able to include some proprietary components could
> certainly go a long way to making that work (ie. ECW SDK, OCI, ...)
>
> So, anyone else have a strong opinion on the matter?
>