This is a very timely question, as we've just been discussing a possible
license change. We'd like to make use of Struts and other apache licensed
software, but apache and GPL conflict. So we are thinking of changing to
an apache style license, but would consider others, such as lgpl. We'd
love to hear from users on this, what type of license you all would like
to see geoserver with.
I'd like to have a license clarificatoin question. I know
Geoserver is under a GPL 2.0 license, which means that you
cannot modify and resell it, which is fine to me.
Actually under the GPL you can definitely modify and resell it, you just
have to issue it under the GPL as well, and include the source code. But
the GPL does not prevent you from modifying the code, or from reselling,
you just have to make available the changes that you made.
Rob, correct me if I'm wrong on any of this.
What I wonder,
is what you consider to be derived work, so how Geoserver
can be used into a commercial "solution".
Lets say I build a wms or wfs client. To what extent this is
not considered derived work?
Well a pure client is definitely not a derived work, both just use the wfs
protocols. There's no way you could say that any client that access
GeoServer has to release its source code.
If the wms client runs in the
same webapp as the wms, it is derived work?
If it shares code I would say it's a derived work. But if it's just a
different servlet that shares the same web.xml file, I personally wouldn't
consider that a derived work. If it's using GeoServer classes then it's
derived, but if it's a whole different set of code, then that would mean
that it could run in its own webapp. At this point it becomes an academic
question, but from TOPP's perspective, if you write a wms client that runs
in the same webapp we're not going to go after you. We're a non-profit
that's about helping to create a free, distributed, and open geographic
information infrastructure. We think that providing a good free open
source wfs will help this goal, not just by people using our wfs, but also
through others building more data sharing solutions on top of it.
What about a
configuration utility, with the following options:
web based, included in the same webapp, web based, in another
webapp, swing based.
I'd say the same for the client, if it could run in its own webapp then
it's fine, but it wouldn't _need_ to run in it's own web app. I would
think of each servlet as a seperate work. It would be a bit harder to not
share code for a configuration utility, but it could be done if it was
just a gui front end to modify GeoServer's xml config files and then just
restarted the GeoServer webapp.
What if I want to add an optimized protocol other than GML (say,
something like pickle) to trasport the geometries? The server
side part is GPL, the client side not?
Yes, I'd say the server side is gpl, the client side not.
Hope this helps, I'm not a license expert, so I may have got somethings
wrong, but hopefully you understand where TOPP is coming from and how it
feels about GeoServer and its license.
Chris