Re: [postgis-users] PostGIS documentation license

[Stephen Woodbridge]

+1 with Regina.

This is exactly my experience. My clients have no issues contributing 
back because the cost of constantly merging their "private" code does 
not offset the value added by keeping it private. On the other hand they 
are VERY reluctant to integrate any GPL code base with their products 
because they do not want to risk polluting the code that is legitimately 
proprietary because it in inadvertently mixed in some GPL code.


A good example is mapserver.org that uses an MIT-X license and a huge 
part of the development effort is funded by commercial companies 
contracting to developers to add this or that feature to the base product.


I don't what to start a this or that is better war. These things tend to 
be very personal beliefs and there are many models and all seem to be 
working, I just think it is a shame the the ecosystem is broken into all 
these camps.


-Steve

On 7/27/2011 1:50 PM, Paragon Corporation wrote:

Paolo,

I think software is more valuable the more people are using it and stress
testing it.  That said, I'm more concerned about people not using PostGIS
because they fear they will have to release their proprietary source code,
more than I am worried about people not giving back to the community. Even
people who don't give back, find bugs and complain which makes the software
stronger and more robust when we fix it.

There are plenty of people producing proprietary software that have no
qualms about giving their enhancements back to PostGIS/GEOS etc and in fact
beg us to take them so they don't have to cut in there changes with each
release.  We have several customers like that -- e.g. the tiger geocoder
work we are doing, x3d export, the ability for shp2pgsql to be able to read
raw dbf (with no shape), the ability to export .prj were all pieces of work
we did as part of work we did for clients marketing closed source SaaS that
relies on PostGIS.  They're willingness to give back these changes wouldn't
have been any different if PostGIS were GPL or BSD because to them PostGIS
is just a wheel in their armor like any other database software would be.
However the fact that PostGIS is GPL does give some a pause for concern as
to how they distribute it etc and their willingness to even use it since it
does bring up the question of where their software begins and PostGIS ends.
If you use Oracle, SQL Server etc, the fact there is a clear payment and
exchange of goods makes it in some cases a safer choice if you are worried
about protecting your intellectual property.

Thanks,
Regina



-Original Message-
From: postgis-users-boun...@postgis.refractions.net
[mailto:postgis-users-boun...@postgis.refractions.net] On Behalf Of Paolo
Cavallini
Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2011 2:46 AM
To: postgis-users@postgis.refractions.net
Subject: Re: [postgis-users] PostGIS documentation license

Il 26/07/2011 22:06, Paragon Corporation ha scritto:


Regarding GPL.   Mostly I just find the whole licensing confusing.  I

don't

think I'm the only one who would be happier if PostGIS was under a BSD/MIT
or some other licensing.  Mostly just for the headache of arguing about

what

you can and can't do with it for commercial purposes.


For what is worth: I'm against it, as this would make it easy to use the
code we
developed in proprietary projects, returning nothing to the project.
All the best.


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Re: [postgis-users] PostGIS documentation license

[Ben Madin]

I kind of agree with Regina here...

On 28/07/2011, at 1:50 AM, Paragon Corporation wrote:

> They're willingness to give back these changes wouldn't have been any 
> different if PostGIS were GPL or BSD because to them PostGIS
> is just a wheel in their armor like any other database software would be. 
> However the fact that PostGIS is GPL does give some a pause for concern as to 
> how they distribute it etc and their willingness to even use it since it does 
> bring up the question of where their software begins and PostGIS ends.

We certainly don't have the ability to give much back - except the bug reports 
and maybe some help on lists, but we do occasionally have clients (some of them 
very small local parts of very large multinational organisations) who want 
solutions without any of the complications of the licensing required by GPL. If 
it looks like getting confusing or complicated, they would rather just pay.

While I personally might believe that this is misguided, I can't really afford 
to turn them away... although if they could give me the money they shelled out 
on proprietary database licences, I wouldn't have so many problems...

Anyhow...
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Re: [postgis-users] PostGIS documentation license

[Sandro Santilli]

On Wed, Jul 27, 2011 at 01:50:54PM -0400, Paragon Corporation wrote:

> I think software is more valuable the more people are using it and stress
> testing it. 

Only if such stress-testing results in actual fixes to the code...

> That said, I'm more concerned about people not using PostGIS
> because they fear they will have to release their proprietary source code,
> more than I am worried about people not giving back to the community. Even
> people who don't give back, find bugs and complain which makes the software
> stronger and more robust when we fix it.

If a company's strategy is to sell a proprietary portion of a system,
there might be a tendency to invest more on workarounds than on fixes
to the free software part. Doing so would increase the added value in
the mixed proprietary/free solution.

This is to say that stress-testing might result in proprietary improvements
more than bugfixes, unless the users of the software are obliged to release
the derivative work as free software as well.

> However the fact that PostGIS is GPL does give some a pause for concern as
> to how they distribute it etc and their willingness to even use it since it
> does bring up the question of where their software begins and PostGIS ends.

I don't see how is this bad.

> If you use Oracle, SQL Server etc, the fact there is a clear payment and
> exchange of goods makes it in some cases a safer choice if you are worried
> about protecting your intellectual property.

Excellent. This is really how copyleft should work.
It _must_ be an expensive choice not to give back to the community.
If you're willing to pay big bucks to be greedy, go ahead :)

--strk;

  ()   Free GIS & Flash consultant/developer
  /\   http://strk.keybit.net/services.html
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Re: [postgis-users] PostGIS documentation license

[Paragon Corporation]

Paolo,

I think software is more valuable the more people are using it and stress
testing it.  That said, I'm more concerned about people not using PostGIS
because they fear they will have to release their proprietary source code,
more than I am worried about people not giving back to the community. Even
people who don't give back, find bugs and complain which makes the software
stronger and more robust when we fix it.

There are plenty of people producing proprietary software that have no
qualms about giving their enhancements back to PostGIS/GEOS etc and in fact
beg us to take them so they don't have to cut in there changes with each
release.  We have several customers like that -- e.g. the tiger geocoder
work we are doing, x3d export, the ability for shp2pgsql to be able to read
raw dbf (with no shape), the ability to export .prj were all pieces of work
we did as part of work we did for clients marketing closed source SaaS that
relies on PostGIS.  They're willingness to give back these changes wouldn't
have been any different if PostGIS were GPL or BSD because to them PostGIS
is just a wheel in their armor like any other database software would be.
However the fact that PostGIS is GPL does give some a pause for concern as
to how they distribute it etc and their willingness to even use it since it
does bring up the question of where their software begins and PostGIS ends.
If you use Oracle, SQL Server etc, the fact there is a clear payment and
exchange of goods makes it in some cases a safer choice if you are worried
about protecting your intellectual property.

Thanks,
Regina



-Original Message-
From: postgis-users-boun...@postgis.refractions.net
[mailto:postgis-users-boun...@postgis.refractions.net] On Behalf Of Paolo
Cavallini
Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2011 2:46 AM
To: postgis-users@postgis.refractions.net
Subject: Re: [postgis-users] PostGIS documentation license

Il 26/07/2011 22:06, Paragon Corporation ha scritto:

> Regarding GPL.   Mostly I just find the whole licensing confusing.  I
don't
> think I'm the only one who would be happier if PostGIS was under a BSD/MIT
> or some other licensing.  Mostly just for the headache of arguing about
what
> you can and can't do with it for commercial purposes.

For what is worth: I'm against it, as this would make it easy to use the
code we
developed in proprietary projects, returning nothing to the project.
All the best.
-- 
Paolo Cavallini: http://www.faunalia.it/pc
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Re: [postgis-users] PostGIS documentation license

[Paolo Cavallini]

Il 26/07/2011 22:06, Paragon Corporation ha scritto:

> Regarding GPL.   Mostly I just find the whole licensing confusing.  I don't
> think I'm the only one who would be happier if PostGIS was under a BSD/MIT
> or some other licensing.  Mostly just for the headache of arguing about what
> you can and can't do with it for commercial purposes.

For what is worth: I'm against it, as this would make it easy to use the code we
developed in proprietary projects, returning nothing to the project.
All the best.
-- 
Paolo Cavallini: http://www.faunalia.it/pc
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Re: [postgis-users] PostGIS documentation license

[Sandro Santilli]

On Tue, Jul 26, 2011 at 04:06:45PM -0400, Paragon Corporation wrote:

> Thanks.  I think I like the FreeBSD one better now that I'm thinking about
> it. My only care is the crediting of PostGIS project if other
> projects/software (whether open source or private)
> benefit from our documentation.

You can obtain crediting by making, for example, chapter 1 of the manual
an "invariant section" under the GNU Free Documentation License.

See http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html

--strk; 

  ()   Free GIS & Flash consultant/developer
  /\   http://strk.keybit.net/services.html
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Re: [postgis-users] PostGIS documentation license

[Paragon Corporation]

Mathieu,

Thanks.  I think I like the FreeBSD one better now that I'm thinking about
it. My only care is the crediting of PostGIS project if other
projects/software (whether open source or private)
benefit from our documentation.

Greg,

Regarding GPL.   Mostly I just find the whole licensing confusing.  I don't
think I'm the only one who would be happier if PostGIS was under a BSD/MIT
or some other licensing.  Mostly just for the headache of arguing about what
you can and can't do with it for commercial purposes.

So only difference with the documentation is that the licensing was never
really defined so easier to change and also I think slightly fewer hands on
it so sign-off is a little easier.

Thanks,
Regina

-Original Message-
From: postgis-users-boun...@postgis.refractions.net
[mailto:postgis-users-boun...@postgis.refractions.net] On Behalf Of Mathieu
Basille
Sent: Tuesday, July 26, 2011 3:27 PM
To: postgis-users@postgis.refractions.net
Subject: Re: [postgis-users] PostGIS documentation license

Dear Regina,

Did you consider the GNU Free Documentation License or the FreeBSD 
Documentation License? They might be more appropriate for a 
documentation compared to a CC licence (aimed for more general purposes).

In particular, they both allow for derivative and/or commercial use. The 
GNU FDL would be more restrictive (with a 'share-alike' clause), and 
allows for 'invariant sections' which are sometimes useful in a software 
documentation if you want to be sure that specific parts remain 
unchanged. The FreeBSD DL is far more permissive and basically 
corresponds to an 'attribution' clause only.

You can find more details on the web, e.g. on Wikipedia [1, 2].
All the best,
Mathieu


[1] 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Free_Documentation_License#Compatibility_wi
th_Creative_Commons_licensing_terms

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeBSD_Documentation_License



Le 26/07/2011 15:03, Paragon Corporation a écrit :
> As several have pointed out the PostGIS documentation does not have a
> clearly defined license assigned to it. This is one of the items on our
> todo to finish off our OSGeo incubation process.
>
> Having it full under GPL like the rest of PostGIS is very unappealing to
me.
>
> I would prefer it be under a fairly unrestricted license such as:
>
> Creative Common Attribution ShareAlike – something like this:
> http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/
>
> And if people happen to make money off of adaptations, printed copies of
> it etc, more power to them.
>
> Do others have any issues, concerns, comments, preferences about this?
>
> I guess people who actually worked on the documentation should be the
> primary ones to decide.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Regina
>
> http://www.postgis.us <http://www.postgis.us/>
>
>
>
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-- 

~$ whoami
Mathieu Basille, Post-Doc

~$ locate
Laboratoire d'Écologie Comportementale et de Conservation de la Faune
+ Centre d'Étude de la Forêt
Département de Biologie
Université Laval, Québec

~$ info
http://ase-research.org/basille

~$ fortune
``If you can't win by reason, go for volume.''
Calvin, by Bill Watterson.
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Re: [postgis-users] PostGIS documentation license

[Mathieu Basille]

Dear Regina,

Did you consider the GNU Free Documentation License or the FreeBSD 
Documentation License? They might be more appropriate for a 
documentation compared to a CC licence (aimed for more general purposes).


In particular, they both allow for derivative and/or commercial use. The 
GNU FDL would be more restrictive (with a 'share-alike' clause), and 
allows for 'invariant sections' which are sometimes useful in a software 
documentation if you want to be sure that specific parts remain 
unchanged. The FreeBSD DL is far more permissive and basically 
corresponds to an 'attribution' clause only.


You can find more details on the web, e.g. on Wikipedia [1, 2].
All the best,
Mathieu


[1] 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Free_Documentation_License#Compatibility_with_Creative_Commons_licensing_terms


[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeBSD_Documentation_License



Le 26/07/2011 15:03, Paragon Corporation a écrit :

As several have pointed out the PostGIS documentation does not have a
clearly defined license assigned to it. This is one of the items on our
todo to finish off our OSGeo incubation process.

Having it full under GPL like the rest of PostGIS is very unappealing to me.

I would prefer it be under a fairly unrestricted license such as:

Creative Common Attribution ShareAlike – something like this:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/

And if people happen to make money off of adaptations, printed copies of
it etc, more power to them.

Do others have any issues, concerns, comments, preferences about this?

I guess people who actually worked on the documentation should be the
primary ones to decide.

Thanks,

Regina

http://www.postgis.us 



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--

~$ whoami
Mathieu Basille, Post-Doc

~$ locate
Laboratoire d'Écologie Comportementale et de Conservation de la Faune
+ Centre d'Étude de la Forêt
Département de Biologie
Université Laval, Québec

~$ info
http://ase-research.org/basille

~$ fortune
``If you can't win by reason, go for volume.''
Calvin, by Bill Watterson.
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[postgis-users] PostGIS documentation license

[Paragon Corporation]

As several have pointed out the PostGIS documentation does not have a
clearly defined license assigned to it.  This is one of the items on our
todo to finish off our  OSGeo incubation process. 

Having it full under GPL like the rest of PostGIS is very unappealing to me.

 

I would prefer it be under a fairly unrestricted license such as:

 

Creative Common Attribution ShareAlike - something like this:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/

And if people happen to make money off of adaptations, printed copies of it
etc, more power to them.

 

Do others have any issues, concerns, comments, preferences about this?

 

I guess people who actually worked on the documentation should be the
primary ones to decide.

 

Thanks,

Regina

 

http://www.postgis.us  

 

 

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