Greetings all:
I raised concerns about geoserver’s GPL licensing on the IRC channel today. Given the licensing terms for GPL I could not write a plugin for a WPS service or their own OWS without having to share the source-code back to the community. While I fully support having to share my source if I distribute updates to the core geoserver architecture, I know my company would not support use of geoserver if we had to share the source code for a plugin. This would hinder my ability to use geoserver at my company, and I would imagine many other consulting companies.
Jody mentioned GPL+Classpath exception and given the proposal I read this seems to make sense. Other than that I might ask that you consider LGPL’ing geoserver. I really want to use the product on projects here but other than “out of the box” scenarios, I will not be able to use geoserver.
Thanks
Steve
The proposal is here:
- http://geoserver.org/display/GEOS/GSIP+37+-+GPL+plus+Classpath+Exception+for+Dispatch
However there is somethign that may help specifically because you are
looking at WPS:
- The WPS module today, is not complete (especially complex
attributes) but it is started and is available for you to work on as a
community module
- the module makes use of the LGPL GeoTools library for the
"ProcessFactory" interface that your company would need to implement
their functionality against.
With that in mind would your company be happy with the idea of
bringing up the GPL Process community module to speed, while working
your custom processes against the LGPL GeoTools library?
Jody
On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 4:36 PM, steven citron-pousty
<scitronpousty@anonymised.com> wrote:
Greetings all:
I raised concerns about geoserver's GPL licensing on the IRC channel today.
Given the licensing terms for GPL I could not write a plugin for a WPS
service or their own OWS without having to share the source-code back to the
community. While I fully support having to share my source if I distribute
updates to the core geoserver architecture, I know my company would not
support use of geoserver if we had to share the source code for a plugin.
This would hinder my ability to use geoserver at my company, and I would
imagine many other consulting companies.
Jody mentioned GPL+Classpath exception and given the proposal I read this
seems to make sense. Other than that I might ask that you consider LGPL'ing
geoserver. I really want to use the product on projects here but other than
"out of the box" scenarios, I will not be able to use geoserver.
Thanks
Steve
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I am not exactly sure what this means:
On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 9:45 PM, Jody Garnett <jody.garnett@anonymised.com> wrote:
With that in mind would your company be happy with the idea of
bringing up the GPL Process community module to speed, while working
your custom processes against the LGPL GeoTools library?
But I am not going to start writing WPS or an OpenLS OWS service right now. I am more doing due diligence as we get ready to chose platforms to extend and work with. I may do some work on my own time - in which case GPL is not a problem, but for company work I can’t do the GPL.
Does that make sense?
Steve
I think what Jody is saying is that you can shield your core code from the GPL by building it on GeoTools, not GeoServer. Jody is also suggesting that you could make some GPL contributions to GeoServer to get WPS to work. This would not affect your proprietary code.
It is important to not be too scared by the GPL: it only affects *derivative* works. The GPL obtains all its power from the copyright law concept of a derivative work, and if you do not derive from another's work, you are not bound by their licence. Bundling code with a GPL work does not make the bundled code GPL. Code that communicates with GPL code via an interface is not infected. Take, for example, the many proprietary modules available for the Linux kernel (GPL). Conformance to an interface does not define a derivative work, because your code would also work with other code that accepted modules conforming to that interface. Extending or modifying GPL code would require you to license your code and changes under the GPL.
I am not a lawyer, but these issues have been debated at length by those who are.
Kind regards,
Ben.
On 11/12/09 13:52, steven citron-pousty wrote:
I am not exactly sure what this means:
On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 9:45 PM, Jody Garnett<jody.garnett@anonymised.com<mailto:jody.garnett@anonymised.com>> wrote:
With that in mind would your company be happy with the idea of
bringing up the GPL Process community module to speed, while working
your custom processes against the LGPL GeoTools library?But I am not going to start writing WPS or an OpenLS OWS service right now. I am more doing due diligence as we get ready to chose platforms to extend and work with. I may do some work on my own time - in which case GPL is not a problem, but for company work I can't do the GPL.
Does that make sense?
Steve
--
Ben Caradoc-Davies <Ben.Caradoc-Davies@anonymised.com>
Software Engineer, CSIRO Earth Science and Resource Engineering
Australian Resources Research Centre
26 Dick Perry Ave, Kensington WA 6151, Australia