[Proj] Use of SQLite

[Bas Couwenberg]

On 2018-05-22 09:58, Martin Desruisseaux wrote:
> Le 21/05/2018 à 21:44, Howard Butler a écrit :
> 
>> The situation at the moment is projects (Debian, GDAL, SIS) and
>> commercial entities (see ESRI's approach) must actively work around
>> the licensing of the EPSG database
>> 
> The work around for EPSG licensing terms are the same than the
> workaround for using a GPL or LGPL library in any Apache project. The
> industry has already accepted this situation. Likewise for Debian, they
> have a "non-free" repository.

In the case of Debian, the non-free "workaround" is very painful and 
should be avoided as much as possible.

>> If EPSG wishes for such open interpretation enforcement, they should
>> instead chose a copyleft license to require everyone to provide source
>> for their interpretations.
>> 
> It is not clear to me how it would have improved the current
> "incompatible CRS definitions" problem. This is not only EPSG; ISO is
> also considering to create a geodetic registry. The concept of "Open
> Standard" is still in development, but both the Open Source Initiative
> (OSI) and Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) are now providing
> definitions [1] [2]. None of them allow to modify standards in
> uncontrolled way. Wikipedia gives also more definitions [3]. It is not
> unreasonable to expect the Open Source world to adapt.

Will you be pushing the effort to get the OSD & DFSG adapted to include 
a paragraph to accept non-modification of open standards works?

That will be an immense effort, with endless discussions, flamewars and 
other unpleasantness. Those documents won't be changed easily.

The "Open Source world" contains too many different opinions to make 
change like that easy.

It will take a very long time until non-modification for open standards 
is accepted in Free Software projects.

In the mean time we'll need better options than changing foundational 
documents like the OSD & DFSG.

Kind Regards,

Bas