We recently released GeoTrellis version 0.8.2. With that release, we moved away from a dual GPLv3/commercial license to the Apache2 license. We made this decision in order to make it easier for people to use GeoTrellis in more contexts. This has already generated some interest from additional contributors, and I think this was the right move.
As some of you know, we have also been contemplating the submission of GeoTrellis to
LocationTech, a relatively new working group that is part of the
Eclipse Foundation. A few weeks ago, we
formally submitted the project and before the end of the year, we plan to submit a release of the software for acceptance as an incubation project with LocationTech.
There are a number of reasons we have been considering this. Some advantages include:
* Eclipse Foundation and LocationTech will give the project greater visibility and credibility
* Will provide a formal process for managing major decisions - while bureaucratic, I think it's a good to have some formality around this.
* Ability to leverage Eclipse community activities for outreach, such as conferences, university programs, and outreach.
* Intellectual Property review will both protect the project at a patent level and reassure potential business users
* GeoTrellis would likely be perceived as part of a larger open source geospatial community
On the last point, I had some hesitation, but the recent submission of
JTS Topology Suite,
GeoGit,
SpatialHadoop,
GeoMesa, and others is already beginning to create a nice assembly of open source projects relevant to distributed processing of geospatial data.
While there are some pros, there are also some cons, which include:
* Logistical and Community impact
-> Must leave GoogleGroups and use Eclipse mailing lists
-> Must transfer the core repo from GitHub to LocationTech organization
-> Releases are done through Eclipse
-> We aren't allowed to do major releases while in the incubation process (which is primarily about IP review and fixing the problems found)
-> We will likely have to make changes in response to the IP review
* Branding
-> Must transfer the trademark (Eclipse will register it for us, so that's kind of a plus)
-> Eclipse has a corporate, button-down brand and culture that is a significant mis-match with Azavea's B-Corp, civic/public service, R&D, urban startup brand and culture.
* Azavea has invested a lot of resources in developing GeoTrellis and this would require us to give up some control
* Responding to the IP review may slow development.
Despite these concerns, we've decided to move forward with the submission. This was not a unanimous decision within Azavea, but we all want to see GeoTrellis evolve, mature and have an impact on geospatial data processing, and the best way to do that is to have more people using it. I think this move will advance this objective more effectively than keeping the project under Azavea's sole control.
So what does this submission to LocationTech mean for the GeoTrellis project? The following outlines the overall process we'll be going through:
LocationTech/Eclipse Submission Process
1) Submit Proposal - done
2 Two Week Comment Period - technically, complete, but until we actually hit creation review, people can still comment
3) Trademark Review - underway - Azavea has initiated transfer of the trademark
4) Eclipse mentors assigned - underway
5) Creation review - we are about to do this in the next few weeks
-> Initiate Creation Review
-> 1 week wait (Thursday to Wednesday)
-> First pass IP review to identify any glaring issues
6) Provisioning - Eclipse team sets up:
-> Create committer records
-> Create mailing list(s)
-> Create CI infrastructure
7) At Start of Incubation
-> Initial Contribution - snapshot of the code as a zip file attached to CQ in IPzilla
8) During Incubation
-> Write Project Metadata
-> Transfer mailing list (export users and Eclipse will import)
-> More detailed IP review
-> Fix problems turned up in IP review
-> Conform to Incubation branding requirements
-> New work must be done on a branch and we cannot do any major releases, though we can do milestone releases
-> Edit and style the project page on the LocationTech web site
9) Acceptance
-> Transfer GitHub repository from GeoTrellis organization to LocationTech organization
-> Transfer build system to Eclipse Maven-based system on Hudson (optional)
-> Merge in changes since IP review
-> Announce acceptance
10) Initial release after acceptance
A few highlights that will affect folks using GeoTrellis to varying degrees:
* We have to move the mailing list to the Eclipse mailing list system (mailman) - this will happen relatively soon.
* There will be a formal voting process for accepting new committers
* We can remain on GitHub, but we will have to move the repo from the GeoTrellis group to the LocationTech group upon acceptance (step 9, above) - this will not happen until incubation is complete
* We will only be moving the GeoTrellis core repo and will not be submitting GeoTrellis-Transit, demo apps and other non-core projects, so the
GeoTrellis organization will remain on GitHub.
* We can't do a major release until after incubation is done, but we can continue working toward a 1.0 release.
Like the license change, this is a decision we've been mulling over for several months. Please feel free to reply with questions or concerns you may have.
Best,
Robert
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Robert Cheetham
Azavea is a B Corporation - we apply geospatial technology to create better communities
while advancing the state-of-the-art through research. Join us in creating a better world.
