[Freegis-list] Thesis on Enterprise GIS

[Tom Lynch]

Stefano Maffulli <stef <at> zoomata.com> writes:
> 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. 
> 
> 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

Hi, Tom from ER Mapper here.

Thought I'd provide a quick rundown on the licenses available for the
ECW JPEG 2000 SDK for the benefit of this thread.

The SDK is covered under three licenses: "Free Use", "Public Use", and
"Commercial Use".  None of these licenses either does, or is currently
intended to conform
exactly to the GPL or BSD licenses, or to the requirements of free software.

We refer to the Public Use license as a "GPL-style" license because it
contains a copyleft restriction, and imposes no other very significant
requirements on use or distribution.

There seems to be an implication in the SDK EULA that the Public Use
license can only apply to free (as in beer) software.  I will review
this point and get back to you.  It is true that we have mainly
anticipated the Public Use license applying to the development of
non-commercial software.

We refer to the Free Use license as a "BSD-style" license because you
can do to a large extent what you want with the code (no copyleft). 
The only restrictions on the use of this code are as follows:

- size of input datasets for ECW and JPEG 2000 compression tasks is
limited to 500MB
- development of "server software" components is prohibited

These restrictions are in place for business reasons.  Note: they do
not apply to the Public Use license.

The Commercial Use license is functionally the same as the Free Use
license, except with the restriction on the size of input datasets for
ECW and JPEG 2000 compression tasks removed.  The other "value added"
in an instance of the Commercial Use license is packaged support.

About the issues surrounding modification of the ECW format and
redistribution of modified codesets: I'll review the wording in the
EULA and possibly suggest changes may be needed (thanks for the input
on trademark enforcement, Stefano).

I can tell you now that we care more about the issue of the integrity
of the ECW format (which ends up being a sizable chunk of the ER
Mapper support burden) than the redistribution rights.  The latter is
mainly an exercise in image protection.

Our ultimate goal with the licensing is to find free licenses for the
SDK which are in line with our business needs and with common OSS
practice.  We're slowly getting closer to that :-)

Hope this clears up some of the confusion in this space.  Feel free to
add questions and criticism.  We are open to new ideas on the
licensing.

cheers

-- 
Tom Lynch
Development, ER Mapper
Phone:      +61 8 93882900
Fax:        +61 8 93882901
Email:      tom.lynch at ermapper.com
Web:        http://www.ermapper.com
Forums:     http://forum.ermapper.com