GPL + Classpath for Dispatch Interfaces?

[Jody Garnett-3]

Morning:

Normally I play with technical debt; today I have some communication
dept to catch up on.

During a recent tender response LISAsoft had a tough time explaining
the ways in which additional modules can be added to GeoServer. Some
years ago we had the idea of making the dispatch system GPL+Classpath
while strictly keeping core service modules (WMS, WFS, WCS) as GPL.
The idea here is to allowing others to use GeoServer like a fancy
Spring system that does OWS service dispatch in additional to URL
remapping etc...).

If this is still a possibility it would really help in future efforts
(well Mark Leslie did the work but I watched him suffer).

In the interest of balance - I also will note that my recent trip to
Perth highlighted an unexpected benifit of GPL. Because the license is
so nice and clear it apparently cuts through lots of red tape allowing
developers to contribute code back promptly (rather than months of
talking to legal departments).

Jody

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[Justin Deoliveira-6]

I would like to push in this direction as well. One of the things I have
been finding out as I travel around lately talking to people using
GeoServer is that folks are actually using the geoserver plugin system
to write their own custom modules. Unfortunately they don;t always talk
to us about it but they are indeed doing so.

Jody Garnett wrote:

> Morning:
>
> Normally I play with technical debt; today I have some communication
> dept to catch up on.
>
> During a recent tender response LISAsoft had a tough time explaining
> the ways in which additional modules can be added to GeoServer. Some
> years ago we had the idea of making the dispatch system GPL+Classpath
> while strictly keeping core service modules (WMS, WFS, WCS) as GPL.
> The idea here is to allowing others to use GeoServer like a fancy
> Spring system that does OWS service dispatch in additional to URL
> remapping etc...).
>
> If this is still a possibility it would really help in future efforts
> (well Mark Leslie did the work but I watched him suffer).
>
> In the interest of balance - I also will note that my recent trip to
> Perth highlighted an unexpected benifit of GPL. Because the license is
> so nice and clear it apparently cuts through lots of red tape allowing
> developers to contribute code back promptly (rather than months of
> talking to legal departments).
>
> Jody
>
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> Geoserver-devel@...
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Justin Deoliveira
OpenGeo - http://opengeo.org
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[Andrea Aime-4]

Justin Deoliveira ha scritto:
> I would like to push in this direction as well. One of the things I have
> been finding out as I travel around lately talking to people using
> GeoServer is that folks are actually using the geoserver plugin system
> to write their own custom modules. Unfortunately they don;t always talk
> to us about it but they are indeed doing so.

+1 for me as well. This would put the platform and ows modules under
the GPL + classpath/LGPL  (platform is already LGPL, or it should be,
right?)

Cheers
Andrea

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[Jody Garnett-3]

> +1 for me as well. This would put the platform and ows modules under
> the GPL + classpath/LGPL  (platform is already LGPL, or it should be,
> right?)

I had just assumed GPL+classpath. With Java going to GPL+classpath it
is just as useful a choice as LGPL for my target market on this one.
It is not LGPL to my knowledge - or if it is Mark and myself just did
way too much work :-(

Jody

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[Jody Garnett-3]

So what is the next step here; a GSIP documenting to change to headers
required and so on?

Jody

On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 5:10 PM, Jody Garnett<jody.garnett@...> wrote:

>> +1 for me as well. This would put the platform and ows modules under
>> the GPL + classpath/LGPL  (platform is already LGPL, or it should be,
>> right?)
>
> I had just assumed GPL+classpath. With Java going to GPL+classpath it
> is just as useful a choice as LGPL for my target market on this one.
> It is not LGPL to my knowledge - or if it is Mark and myself just did
> way too much work :-(
>
> Jody
>

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[Justin Deoliveira-6]

Andrea Aime wrote:

> Justin Deoliveira ha scritto:
>> I would like to push in this direction as well. One of the things I have
>> been finding out as I travel around lately talking to people using
>> GeoServer is that folks are actually using the geoserver plugin system
>> to write their own custom modules. Unfortunately they don;t always talk
>> to us about it but they are indeed doing so.
>
> +1 for me as well. This would put the platform and ows modules under
> the GPL + classpath/LGPL  (platform is already LGPL, or it should be,
> right?)

I don't think any of the modules are LGPL at this point, there was talk
but i don;t think anything changed. We would probably have to lump in
rest and main into the modules we relicense, main because you could not
run geoserver without it really, and rest because it more or less serves
the same purpose as ows, except for restful services.
>
> Cheers
> Andrea
>


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Justin Deoliveira
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Enterprise support for open source geospatial.

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[Justin Deoliveira-6]

I would say so yeah. And I guess we need permission from the official
copyright holder as well, however a GSIP ready to go before hand would
probably help.

Jody Garnett wrote:

> So what is the next step here; a GSIP documenting to change to headers
> required and so on?
>
> Jody
>
> On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 5:10 PM, Jody Garnett<jody.garnett@...> wrote:
>>> +1 for me as well. This would put the platform and ows modules under
>>> the GPL + classpath/LGPL  (platform is already LGPL, or it should be,
>>> right?)
>> I had just assumed GPL+classpath. With Java going to GPL+classpath it
>> is just as useful a choice as LGPL for my target market on this one.
>> It is not LGPL to my knowledge - or if it is Mark and myself just did
>> way too much work :-(
>>
>> Jody
>>
>
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[Jody Garnett-3]

Started up a GSIP for this one:
- http://geoserver.org/display/GEOS/GSIP+37+-+GPL+plus+Classpath+Exception+for+Dispatch

I need a hand sorting out which modules would be effected by this change.

Justin also pointed out:
- web would be recommended so people can add configuration user
interface contributinos
- this proposal does not help the most popular addition (which is the
creation of additional WFS output formats). WPS would also need to
make use of the various feature collection output formats - so perhaps
this could be dragged up into core?

Jody



On Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 10:24 AM, Justin Deoliveira<jdeolive@...> wrote:

> I would say so yeah. And I guess we need permission from the official
> copyright holder as well, however a GSIP ready to go before hand would
> probably help.
>
> Jody Garnett wrote:
>>
>> So what is the next step here; a GSIP documenting to change to headers
>> required and so on?
>>
>> Jody
>>
>> On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 5:10 PM, Jody Garnett<jody.garnett@...>
>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> +1 for me as well. This would put the platform and ows modules under
>>>> the GPL + classpath/LGPL  (platform is already LGPL, or it should be,
>>>> right?)
>>>
>>> I had just assumed GPL+classpath. With Java going to GPL+classpath it
>>> is just as useful a choice as LGPL for my target market on this one.
>>> It is not LGPL to my knowledge - or if it is Mark and myself just did
>>> way too much work :-(
>>>
>>> Jody
>>>
>>
>>
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>
>
> --
> Justin Deoliveira
> OpenGeo - http://opengeo.org
> Enterprise support for open source geospatial.
>

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[Andrea Aime-4]

Jody Garnett ha scritto:
> Started up a GSIP for this one:
> - http://geoserver.org/display/GEOS/GSIP+37+-+GPL+plus+Classpath+Exception+for+Dispatch
>
> I need a hand sorting out which modules would be effected by this change.
>
> Justin also pointed out:
> - web would be recommended so people can add configuration user
> interface contributinos

Hmmm... I would prefer to keep the UI pure GPL. Usually my preference is:
- LGPL for anything library-sh
- GPL for anything that sounds like an application

The web UI is application imho. We could have some bits of it in LGPL,
like the base page classes and the raw components, but I'm quite -1
on having the catalog configuration pages go LGPL.

Which hmmm... brings me to the catalog itself. One cannot do basically
anything without touching the catalog, so if we follow this line
of thought we should turn the catalog interfaces and implementation
into a less restrictive license as well?

> - this proposal does not help the most popular addition (which is the
> creation of additional WFS output formats). WPS would also need to
> make use of the various feature collection output formats - so perhaps
> this could be dragged up into core?

Moved in a more central place, yes, turned in LGPL, hmmm... don't like
that much. I mean, if we follow this line we end up turning LGPL
significant portions of GeoServer, at that point we may as well change
its license solid

Cheers
Andrea

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[Jody Garnett-3]

> Hmmm... I would prefer to keep the UI pure GPL. Usually my preference is:
> - LGPL for anything library-sh
> - GPL for anything that sounds like an application
>
> The web UI is application imho. We could have some bits of it in LGPL,
> like the base page classes and the raw components, but I'm quite -1
> on having the catalog configuration pages go LGPL.

We are talking GPL+Classpath Exception (not LGPL) but yeah I hear you.
I think the goal here is to allow modules to provide additional
configuration UI (not to hand over the catalog configuration pages).

> Moved in a more central place, yes, turned in LGPL, hmmm... don't like
> that much. I mean, if we follow this line we end up turning LGPL significant
> portions of GeoServer, at that point we may as well change
> its license solid

I am a bit confused as to how much of the code base we are talking
here; for dispatch we only need to relax the GPL on the interfaces we
are expecting others to implement; not on the implementation that
wires it all up and makes it sit up and beg for coffee? Same deal for
output formats...

Jody

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[Justin Deoliveira-6]

My comment about the web application was without it I don't see any
license unrestrictions being very useful, because without at least some
web support you can't run geoserver.

So the idea was to make web-app, and part of web-core GPL + classpath
and leave all the other web modules GPL. This would give someone at
least something runnable with the plugin system at their disposal, they
would just get a blank UI starting it up.

And yeah, output formats are tricky. If we want to keep WFS/WMS GPL that
means someone would not be able to write a proprietary output format for
geoserver. But if we make those modules LGPL/GPL+Classpath then we might
as well make all of geoserver that.


Jody Garnett wrote:

>> Hmmm... I would prefer to keep the UI pure GPL. Usually my preference is:
>> - LGPL for anything library-sh
>> - GPL for anything that sounds like an application
>>
>> The web UI is application imho. We could have some bits of it in LGPL,
>> like the base page classes and the raw components, but I'm quite -1
>> on having the catalog configuration pages go LGPL.
>
> We are talking GPL+Classpath Exception (not LGPL) but yeah I hear you.
> I think the goal here is to allow modules to provide additional
> configuration UI (not to hand over the catalog configuration pages).
>
>> Moved in a more central place, yes, turned in LGPL, hmmm... don't like
>> that much. I mean, if we follow this line we end up turning LGPL significant
>> portions of GeoServer, at that point we may as well change
>> its license solid
>
> I am a bit confused as to how much of the code base we are talking
> here; for dispatch we only need to relax the GPL on the interfaces we
> are expecting others to implement; not on the implementation that
> wires it all up and makes it sit up and beg for coffee? Same deal for
> output formats...
>
> Jody

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OpenGeo - http://opengeo.org
Enterprise support for open source geospatial.

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