[QGIS-Developer] iOS prototyping

Thu Nov 8 21:09:23 PST 2018

Hi Nyall

Thanks so much for articulating what I couldn’t in your email below. This is 100% what I am after too: A sensible, open discussion with an eye to maintaining the long term survival and success of the QGIS project in a changing world. I agree with everything you said down to the donation of any previous work I have made in the code base to the QGIS.org project.

Regards

Tim

> On 09 Nov 2018, at 04:56, Nyall Dawson <nyall.dawson at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On Fri, 2 Nov 2018 at 00:39, Greg Troxel <gdt at lexort.com <mailto: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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—

Tim Sutton

Co-founder: Kartoza
Ex Project chair: QGIS.org

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