org.opengis license question as part of apache-sis dependencies

[Florian Micklich <fl...@disy.net.INVALID>]

Hi everyone

I am using  apache-sis and I was wondering that some external packaged were used from  org.opengis packages I know from GeoTools (LGPL license).

I asked the apache-sis mailing list and got following response:

        Yes the main authors of GeoTools referencing module are now
      working on Apache SIS. That is why some classes are similar. A
      review of intellectual property has been done in order to port to
      SIS only the GeoTools codes that have been written by developers
      who have signed the Apache Individual Contributor License
      Agreement (ICLA), which is the vast majority of metadata and
      referencing code. Each of those classes are listed in the link
      below, with a list of commits for each class and actions taken for
      the few cases where a commit was not done by an author who signed
      ICLA:

https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/sis/ip-review/




So I can use all provides classes from following dependency even if they have org.opengis as source? What does the ip-review mean?

  <dependency>
    <groupId>org.apache.sis.core</groupId>
    <artifactId>sis-referencing</artifactId>
    <version>${sis.version}</version>
  </dependency>





Furthermore following additional information was added.

GeoAPI 3.0.1 interfaces in the org.opengis packages are under OGC
      Software License Version 1.0 which is BSD like:

https://www.ogc.org/ogc/software/1.0



A discussion about this license can be viewed there:

https://github.com/spdx/license-list-XML/issues/845



As discussed in above link, a future version of GeoAPI interfaces
      may need to move to a slightly different license, the OGC document
      license. No decision has been taken yet and the Apache foundation
      will be consulted first. In the context of GeoAPI, the OGC
      document license is the same than the current BSD like "OGC
      software license" with one additional constraint: if a user wants
      to modify an interface in the "org.opengis" package, then (s)he
      needs to rename "org.opengis" into something else. After (s)he has
      done this renaming, the interfaces fall into the BSD-like license.
      Note that this is similar to a similar constraints in Apache
      license, which said that if we modify an Apache software then we
      can not call it Apache anymore; we have to give it a new name. The
      "OGC document license" is simply more specific about the
      requirement to change the namespace (in the case of Java: package
      and module names) in order to avoid conflicts with other
      implementations of the standard.


https://www.ogc.org/ogc/document



But this is for future. Current GeoAPI 3.0.1 is BSD-like, and I
      plan to have a discussion between OGC and Apache before to
      eventually move GeoAPI 3.1/4.0 to "OGC document license" for
      making sure that it is okay for Apache.




What could this mean for us?


Greetings

Florian

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Florian Micklich
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Re: org.opengis license question as part of apache-sis dependencies

[Justin Mclean <ju...@me.com.INVALID>]

Hi,

> I am using  apache-sis and I was wondering that some external packaged were used from  org.opengis packages I know from GeoTools (LGPL license).

LGPL and GPL are not compatible with the Apache license. [1]

> So I can use all provides classes from following dependency even if they have org.opengis as source? What does the ip-review mean?

If they have change the license and ALL contributors have signed an ICLA then it would be OK.

> But this is for future. Current GeoAPI 3.0.1 is BSD-like, and I
>     plan to have a discussion between OGC and Apache before to
>     eventually move GeoAPI 3.1/4.0 to "OGC document license" for
>     making sure that it is okay for Apache.

BSD is OK but until that conversation happens and teh license is approved I’d treat it as not compatible.

Thanks,
Justin

1. https://www.apache.org/licenses/GPL-compatibility.html