[Freegis-list] free ecw?

[Arnulf Christl]

Stefano Maffulli wrote:
> On Mon, 2005-06-20 at 11:23 -0400, Frank Warmerdam wrote:
> 
>>I don't believe that the ERM public use license qualifies under
>>the free software definition due to a few limitations.  Notably
>>the one disallowing changes to the ECW format, and the apparent
>>disallowing of distributing modified versions of the code except
>>via patch sets. 

Another glitch can be found in the downloadable EULA:
http://www.ermapper.com/downloads/down/download_product.aspx?PRODUCT_VERSION_ID=275

In Setion "ECW JPEG 2000 SDK FREE USE LICENSE AGREEMENT" it says:
[...]
The intent of this license is to allow unlimited decompression and 
limited compression (500MB per image) of ECW JPEG 2000 images within 
free or commercial applications.
[...]

Ont the homepage you find another definiton under "Updated ECW JPEG SDK 
EULA":
http://www.ermapper.com/downloads/download_view.aspx?PRODUCT_VERSION_ID=275
[...]
Free GPL style EULA (for non-commercial free software including server 
based software):

     * Unlimited decompression
     * Unlimited compression
[...]

Before using compression i would therfore strongly recommend to check 
back and ask them for clarification.

Regarding the term "commercial" there is still a lot of 
midsunderstanding going on - even on this list. Most everybody still 
says "commercial vs. Free" although it should say "proprietary vs. Free" 
or "closed vs. Free" depending of the point of view. But what the heck, 
learning takes time, give people time to understand. Resulting from this 
confusion of definitons currently ERM does not provide a license for 
"commercial free software".

Besides that i am pretty excited at having them open their licensing 
agreements to such a far degree. It is really very complicated to do 
this, especially if beforehand you did provide your software under a 
closed license (talk to any merited manager and he will be ignorant as a 
child to what you tell him). You collect all sorts of restrictions on 
components that have become integral part of your software a long time ago.
So i think we should very much appreciate their initiative.

To retrospectively GPL (as a verb) a software in european law it 
additionally requires you to contact every single developer and have her 
sign an agreement which allows you to do this - tribute to European 
authorship legislation.

> That's really too bad for them, because both issues you mention can be
> resolved pretty easily: not changing the format itself can be achieved
> with a trademark enforcement and the same trademark can avoid the
> distribution of modified ECW software (since I guess that ER is afraid
> that somebody distributes a modified sdk that doesn't work well and they
> risk losing their credibility).  If this is the case and since they have
> already done most of the work to get close to free software and with
> just a little step they can be complete citizens of the free software
> community. 
> 
> The objections you report are the same ones of Mozilla Foundation and
> they were solved recently with the Mozilla Trademark Policy v1.0 
> http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/trademarks/policy.html

[...]

> maybe you can let them read the Mozilla trademark policy then :)
> 
> regards
> stef

They sould be on this list anyways, else why not just send it to them?!

:-)

They were at the OSG 05 but it seemed like they sort of didn't mingle 
too well with the rest of the pack so they left and i couldn't meet 
them. Did anybody? (not you Frank, you sold out long ago :-)

Best,