[QGIS-Developer] iOS prototyping

Thu Nov 8 23:44:11 PST 2018

Hi all,
I'm following this from a distant eye, not being sure to understand clearly
what is propose and what is at stake.

Could someone do a brief synthesis for a broader audience?

Concerning the iOS, a word a the french context. Apple hardware costs are
so expensive that I almost never see any professional GIS application asked
on those platforms. It might be different in the US for sure.
We have more questions about linking QGIS proprietary software in closed
source solutions. And at the cultural moment we see, I see the GPL licence
more as a protection and a way to trigger discussions and cultural changes
than a real break.
We already succeded to change some customers mind to open source their
product. I'm pretty sure that it wouldn't have been possible with a
permissive licence.

Debate welcome :)
Régis

Le ven. 9 nov. 2018 à 06:09, Tim Sutton <tim at kartoza.com> a écrit :

> 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> 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.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> QGIS-Developer mailing list
> QGIS-Developer at lists.osgeo.org
> List info: https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer
>
> _______________________________________________
> QGIS-Developer mailing list
> QGIS-Developer at lists.osgeo.org
> List info: https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer
>
>
> —
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *Tim Sutton*
>
> *Co-founder:* Kartoza
> *Ex Project chair:* QGIS.org
>
> Visit http://kartoza.com to find out about open source:
>
> Desktop GIS programming services
> Geospatial web development
> GIS Training
> Consulting Services
>
> *Skype*: timlinux
> *IRC:* timlinux on #qgis at freenode.net
>
> _______________________________________________
> QGIS-Developer mailing list
> QGIS-Developer at lists.osgeo.org
> List info: https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/qgis-developer/attachments/20181109/a6965ed8/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: KartozaNewLogoThumbnail.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 6122 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/qgis-developer/attachments/20181109/a6965ed8/attachment-0002.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: KartozaNewLogoThumbnail.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 6122 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/qgis-developer/attachments/20181109/a6965ed8/attachment-0003.jpg>