[QGIS-Developer] iOS prototyping

[Nyall Dawson]

On Fri, 2 Nov 2018 at 00:39, Greg Troxel <gdt at lexort.com> wrote:
>
> Andreas Neumann <a.neumann at carto.net> writes:
>
> > Before we go to far with the discussion here, I would first ask all of
> > the core devs if they really would like to do that.
> >
> > Without an agreement in place, the code is owned by each contributor
> > separately. I know of quite a few core devs who are not keen on ceding
> > their copyright to QGIS.ORG, if the goal is to undermine the GPL
> > license.
> >
> > I am also not sure if QGIS.ORG is ready to prepare such an ownership
> > agreement.
> >
> > Personally, I fail to understand what the benefits are, if we go this
> > route. On the contrary - I think we are risking to loose many core
> > contributors if we do that.
>
> I'm a lurker who has not contributed to qgis, but someday might.  Within
> pkgsrc.org, a multi-os multi-arch portable packaging system, I'm one of
> the people that most frequently gets asked license questions.  I
> maintain the geos/postgis entries in pkgsrc.
>
> I have contributed to a number of open source projects -- but I tend to
> find something else to do when I'm asked to sign any kind of CLA or
> copyright assignment.
>
> I think there are multiple things going on:
>
>   How do people feel about accomodating Apple's ban on GPL software for
>   the iOS app store?  People have talked about qgis having an exception,
>   but nobody has brought up talking to Apple to get them to change their
>   terms.  I suspect those who really believe in the GPL's purpose don't
>   want to make an exception, and there will be enough such people that
>   rewriting all their code is not sensible.
>
>   Evolution of the license as the licensing landscape change.  If we are
>   talking about changing GPL2 or later to GPL3 or later, that seems
>   straightforward, and I think all it takes is for core to accept some
>   nontrivial code that is GPL3 or later.  There is the serious question
>   about not letting people copy/modify/redistribute under GPL2, but
>   that's a group social question, not something that needs every
>   contributor to sign off on.
>
>   Change to permissive.  Perhaps because of wanting to accomodate Apple,
>   or for other reasons, some may want a permissive license.  This is a
>   huge cultural change, and I would expect a significant number of
>   people would not be ok with this.
>
>   Copyright assignment.  This opens up the fear of a change in license
>   later (to permissive or to accomodate Apple's GPL ban), which leads to
>   wanting to have terms in the assignment that constrain the future
>   choice.  And it means asking people to sign copyright assignments
>   before their code can be merged.  In my view, this alienates potential
>   contributors.  So if qgis stays on the GPL "N or later" track, I don't
>   see why this helps, and it will definitely hurt.

Thanks for the feedback here -- it's much appreciated.

I feel there's been substantial misunderstanding of the original
intent of my email. It wasn't designed to address any *specific*
licensing issues such as the issue with Apple's app store. (And, on a
practical level, this is a VERY REAL issue, limiting some value of
QGIS). That's all secondary to the discussion I was hoping to raise
and should be deferred to a future discussion if/when needed/possible.

(Gosh, I can't think of how to word this well... I'll just plough
ahead and hope my intention gets through)

Up front, know that I'm a staunch open source supporter, both from a
practical and idealistic view. I'm not interested in closed source
software and likely never will be.

I strongly believe that the QGIS project has a fantastic governance
structure, and one which is a role model for other
projects/communities. This is all thanks to the hard work and tireless
efforts of the PSC and other members of the community. It's something
we should be intensely proud of. I know I am! In fact, I've seen time
and time again how good project governance and community in open
source projects is often worth FAR more than the code itself.

I personally feel that the project governance structure is so strong
that I'm willing to trust it with complete ownership of YEARS of my
development work*. I've complete confidence in the project governance
that they have (and will remain to have) the best interests of the
QGIS project at heart. And in order for them to continue doing what's
necessary to ensure survival (and dominance! ;) ) of the software, I
think it's important that the organisation has some avenue in future
to be able to relicense the codebase IF there's a compelling reason
why they think it's required.

Putting it another way: if, for whatever reason, the current license
becomes a roadblock in future which threatens the future of the
software, what do we do? I'd hate to see something like this occur and
result in the project, and all the years of effort which has been put
into it, being abandoned because we have no course of action to
address this.

I 100% realise this is a tricky conversation... but that shouldn't
prevent us from discussing it openly and with a spirit of
collaboration. I don't think avoiding tricky discussions just because
they are tricky is ever a good approach.

And hey, my trust in the project governance goes both ways. If they
discuss this topic and decide it's not something they want to pursue,
then I'm fine with that too. Like I said -- I trust them to run the
project and continue to do outstanding efforts on the jobs we've
elected them to do.

Nyall

*  Heck, take this email as a legally binding agreement if you want --
I'm granting the QGIS organisation legal entity any rights they want
to code I've written for QGIS over the years to do with whatever they
want. That's how strongly I trust them.



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