(Oops, try again. Sorry Nathan for the second copy): Sorry everyone, Looks like I've messed up this thread a bit by hitting reply instead of reply all, and also sending one email accidentally. I'll try to reassemble it, since I wanted to get the logic on the record:
On 21/08/2013, Nathan Woodrow <madman...@gmail.com> wrote: >On 21/08/2013, Alister Hood <alister.h...@gmail.com> wrote: >> On 21/08/2013, Nathan Woodrow <madman...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> This is not a QGIS GPL thing. It's related to GDAL. >> >> That'd be find if you were just shipping it with gdal. e.g. you could >> ship it in an installer for an LGPL or proprietary licensed program >> (e.g. an ECW header editor), and if someone wanted to they could >> install that over the top of the gdal in a QGIS install. >> >> But if you're shipping it and gdal with QGIS, not as a separate >> program, then the QGIS license is also relevant. Isn't this situation >> the exact reason why the LGPL is mentioned in exceptions like this?: >> "In addition, as a special exception, the copyright holders of ABC >> give you permission to combine ABC program with free software programs >> or libraries that are released under the GNU LGPL and with..." >> (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0-faq.html#GPLIncompatibleLibs) >> >> Or is it somehow different in this case because the interface with the >> ECW libs will be separated out into a separate gdal-ecw "plugin", and >> QGIS and the main gdal lib can function fine without that?. > > I'm pretty sure this is the case. Some that want to follow GPL to the letter > might not see it as still workable but most see it as fine. It's the same if > I > complied GDAL with DWG support because it needs a propitiatory driver. > QGIS will work with it fine, but in that case we can't ship it because we > can't > ship the closed DWG drivers. > >>> gdal-ecw is built >>> against the ecw libs and we just have to ship them with QGIS so GDAL can >>> find them. The GDAL licence allows this and Intergraph allows you to >>> ship >>> the ECW read-only libs as long as you show their EULA for them in your >>> application. For us this will be shown on install and in the about >>> dialog. >>> >>> - Nathan >>> >>> >>> On Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 11:54 AM, Alister <alister.h...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>>> Hi guys, >>>> I've never understood why we had a concern about licensing on the >>>> Intergraph side in the first place. But has anyone recorded the logic >>>> around how this doesn't violate *the GPL*? Wouldn't QGIS need a license >>>> exception to allow this? If not, it would be nice to put this >>>> interpretation of the GPL on the record... >>>> >>>> Regards, >>>> Alister The punchline is in the middle with Nathan's example of ECW vs DWG, except it's a little unclear - I think he's saying that DWG support is built into the main gdal lib, not as a plugin, so he really means it's _different_ with DWG, not _the same_. FWIW, because of the exception clauses I referred to and interpretations like at http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/faq/html/chapter-legal.html I still haven't seen enough to convince me that this reasoning is correct. If anyone has a good reference supporting it that'd be great, but at least now the reasoning is clear. _______________________________________________ Qgis-user mailing list Qgis-user@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-user
