Re: [udig-devel] EPL, UDIG and Geotools license

[Adrian Custer <acuster@xxxxxxxxx>]

A parting shot,

This discussion is *way* too rooted in here-say to continue as is so
unless someone can come up with actual quotes from the relevant
licenses, I will no longer continue the discussion. Furthermore,
practical analysis of the situation and the aims of the participants
shows that no one will be at any kind of legal risk by using,
re-distributing or building on uDig. The holders of copyright on the
code in uDig: Sun, Eclipse, JTS, GeoAPI, Geotools, Apache ... all appear
thrilled by the existence of uDig---everyone else is irrelevant to the
discussion. Finally, until geotools legal issues are settled, I'm not
getting started on uDig's legal issues other than considering the
cleanup that will need to happen to document the current legal status.


In response to Andrea:

        If two elements can both be distributed separately then
        distributing them jointly is purely incidental to the transfer
        mechanism and therefore perfectly legal. I have never seen any
        free software license using language that tries to restrict
        additional contents in a *distribution*. Unless someone can
        point to language that makes this illegal, I will presume no
        such language exists. 
        
        *Linking* the two pieces is an issue with some licenses but, at
        least on the LGPL side, that has been explicitly addressed. I
        also presume that the EPL has dealt with this since linking new
        plugins is the whole point of eclipse and its rcp.
        
        *Integrating* different code bases into a single tree and then
        *changing license* is a real issue for most licenses. (The idea
        such a thing could even be possible is a *freedom* that free
        software, BSD especially, gave us.) I don't believe this is
        happening anywhere with uDig code. 


Regardless, any eventual issues which arose could trivially be worked
around by distributing only a tiny eclipse and having the user use an
update site at startup. I would be very surprised to find that such a
work around were necessary but it will be relatively painless to do
someday. 


So that's it from me. If you are afraid, breathe deeply and then start
running. Run fast! They are right behind you. And they are green, gooey,
and have big, big teeth. Quick, QUICK! :-)

--Adrian


On Fri, 2007-08-03 at 11:46 +0200, Andrea Antonello wrote:
> >         Warning: This message comes without careful study --- I haven't
> >         even read the page you link to. Still it might help you parse
> >         the situation.
> 
> Same for me and add that I have problems with understanding licenses :)
> 
> > "Compatability" can mean a lot of different things. Generally, the
> > question is whether two bits of code can be integrated and
> > re-distributed under a single license: e.g. take some BSD code, put it
> > in your app, and then release your app under the MyLicenseOfTheDay
> > license.
> > 
> > uDig "the app" can be viewed as a collection of plugins, each
> > distributed under their own license. This still restricts what can
> > happen but without needing the strong compatibility I described above.
> > 
> > Fundamentally, each plugin must be license coherent internally and all
> > the licenses used by all the plugins must have licenses that allow users
> > and redistributors to bundle up the plugins jointly. 
> > 
> > The question then is not "Can LGPL and EPL code be merged and released
> > under only one of the two?", which is what the poster considers and has
> > as a generally accepted answer "no", but rather 
> 
> QUOTE:
> > "can I distribute
> > several programs jointly some of which are EPL and some of which are
> > LGPL and then can I run an LGPL program using the EPL program?", which
> > is a much less strict form of compatibility and we believe the answers
> > to be "yes, of course" and "yes". 
> 
> That is the problem if I got that right. As far as they told me you are
> not allowed to distribute them jointly. You should distribute the
> plugins and ask the user to download the EPL part on its own.
> 
> Andrea
> 
> 
> > 
> > Does that help clarify things?
> > 
> > --adrian
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > User-friendly Desktop Internet GIS (uDig)
> > http://udig.refractions.net
> > http://lists.refractions.net/mailman/listinfo/udig-devel
> > 
> _______________________________________________
> User-friendly Desktop Internet GIS (uDig)
> http://udig.refractions.net
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