Moving code from GeoServer to GeoTools

[Ben Caradoc-Davies]

[Repurposing and renaming a thread from geotools-users:]

On 13/05/12 16:49, Andrea Aime wrote:
> On Sun, May 13, 2012 at 4:03 AM, Michael Bedward
> <[hidden email]>  wrote:
>> Thanks for the pointer to the GeoServer legend creation code David. If
>> acceptable, and feasible, it would be really useful to move this into
>> GeoTools at some stage - perhaps to sit in gt-main or gt-render.
>
> Sure. GeoServer has a history of contributing back to GeoTools everything that
> is not network service specific, so I believe you backporting the legend code
> and making it useful for other apps too would be something welcomed indeed

The only formality is that, because GeoServer is a GPL project and
GeoTools is an LGPL project, moving code from GeoServer to GeoTools
requires the agreement of TOPP (or the original contributor). The code
must be a new contribution to avoid contaminating GeoTools with the
requirements of the GPL. Using TOPP means not having to track down the
original authors.

This kind of cross-project refactoring is a good thing, but in my view
we need to preserve the separation of licences. For example, I can't
just grab a chunk of GeoServer and commit it into the GeoTools repo and
say "whatever, it is all open source".

I am tempted to treat OpenGeo staff as being able to approve this, but I
am not a lawyer and I don't know if TOPP and OpenGeo are as
indistinguishable as I would like to pretend. Could this be as easy as
making sure an OpenGeo employee approves the transfer by making a
comment on the Jira issue for the GeoTools patch based on GeoServer?
Would this be sufficient to make the GeoTools patch a new contribution
assigned to OSGeo?

Chris, would you care to comment?

Kind regards,

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[mbedward]

In this case getting the permission of original author(s) to swap the
code to LGPL should be straightforward.  The same thing has been done
previously, e.g. Andrea transferring raster processes from GS into the
gt-process-raster module.

Michael

On 14 May 2012 11:55, Ben Caradoc-Davies <[hidden email]> wrote:

> [Repurposing and renaming a thread from geotools-users:]
>
> On 13/05/12 16:49, Andrea Aime wrote:
>>
>> On Sun, May 13, 2012 at 4:03 AM, Michael Bedward
>> <[hidden email]>  wrote:
>>>
>>> Thanks for the pointer to the GeoServer legend creation code David. If
>>> acceptable, and feasible, it would be really useful to move this into
>>> GeoTools at some stage - perhaps to sit in gt-main or gt-render.
>>
>>
>> Sure. GeoServer has a history of contributing back to GeoTools everything
>> that
>> is not network service specific, so I believe you backporting the legend
>> code
>> and making it useful for other apps too would be something welcomed indeed
>
>
> The only formality is that, because GeoServer is a GPL project and GeoTools
> is an LGPL project, moving code from GeoServer to GeoTools requires the
> agreement of TOPP (or the original contributor). The code must be a new
> contribution to avoid contaminating GeoTools with the requirements of the
> GPL. Using TOPP means not having to track down the original authors.
>
> This kind of cross-project refactoring is a good thing, but in my view we
> need to preserve the separation of licences. For example, I can't just grab
> a chunk of GeoServer and commit it into the GeoTools repo and say "whatever,
> it is all open source".
>
> I am tempted to treat OpenGeo staff as being able to approve this, but I am
> not a lawyer and I don't know if TOPP and OpenGeo are as indistinguishable
> as I would like to pretend. Could this be as easy as making sure an OpenGeo
> employee approves the transfer by making a comment on the Jira issue for the
> GeoTools patch based on GeoServer? Would this be sufficient to make the
> GeoTools patch a new contribution assigned to OSGeo?
>
> Chris, would you care to comment?
>
> Kind regards,
>
> --
> Ben Caradoc-Davies <[hidden email]>
> Software Engineer
> CSIRO Earth Science and Resource Engineering
> Australian Resources Research Centre

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[Ben Caradoc-Davies]

Sure, this has been done many times. There is the more general case that
we can address if we like.

On 14/05/12 10:17, Michael Bedward wrote:
> In this case getting the permission of original author(s) to swap the
> code to LGPL should be straightforward.  The same thing has been done
> previously, e.g. Andrea transferring raster processes from GS into the
> gt-process-raster module.

--
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Australian Resources Research Centre

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[geowolf]

On Mon, May 14, 2012 at 3:55 AM, Ben Caradoc-Davies
<[hidden email]> wrote:
> This kind of cross-project refactoring is a good thing, but in my view we
> need to preserve the separation of licences. For example, I can't just grab
> a chunk of GeoServer and commit it into the GeoTools repo and say "whatever,
> it is all open source".

It is my understanding that if you're the sole author of a particular
piece of code
you retain the right to re-license it without having to get approval from
The Open Planning Project (that is, you give TOPP the copyright without losing
yours, might be wrong here).

Generally speaking we never had an automatic mechanism like you describe
though, to put it in place I believe we'd need quite a bit of red tape.

Cheers
Andrea

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[jody.garnett]

Thus far the "procedure" has been to ask nicely on the geoserver-devel email list; and get approval from one of the steering committee.

You can recently see this done with some of the WPS work which I back ported in september. 

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Jody Garnett

On Monday, 14 May 2012 at 4:34 PM, Andrea Aime wrote:

On Mon, May 14, 2012 at 3:55 AM, Ben Caradoc-Davies

<[hidden email]> wrote:

This kind of cross-project refactoring is a good thing, but in my view we

need to preserve the separation of licences. For example, I can't just grab

a chunk of GeoServer and commit it into the GeoTools repo and say "whatever,

it is all open source".

It is my understanding that if you're the sole author of a particular

piece of code

you retain the right to re-license it without having to get approval from

The Open Planning Project (that is, you give TOPP the copyright without losing

yours, might be wrong here).

Generally speaking we never had an automatic mechanism like you describe

though, to put it in place I believe we'd need quite a bit of red tape.

Cheers

Andrea

--

Ing. Andrea Aime

GeoSolutions S.A.S.

Tech lead

Via Poggio alle Viti 1187

55054  Massarosa (LU)

Italy

phone: [phone]

fax:      [phone]

mob:    [phone]

http://www.geo-solutions.it

http://geo-solutions.blogspot.com/

http://www.youtube.com/user/GeoSolutionsIT

http://www.linkedin.com/in/andreaaime

http://twitter.com/geowolf

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[Ben Caradoc-Davies]

On 14/05/12 14:34, Andrea Aime wrote:
> It is my understanding that if you're the sole author of a particular
> piece of code
> you retain the right to re-license it without having to get approval from
> The Open Planning Project (that is, you give TOPP the copyright without losing
> yours, might be wrong here).

Yes.

GeoServer contributors assign their copyrights to TOPP:

"For good and valuable consideration, receipt of which I acknowledge, I,
___________________,
hereby transfer to The Open Planning Project ("TOPP") my entire right,
title, and interest (including all
rights under copyright) in the program GeoServer (“Program”), including
original code, accompanying
documentation and supporting files, changes and enhancements to the
Program code and accompanying
files, and all future modifications of the Program code and accompanying
files, subject to the conditions
below."

Then TOPP licences it back to you for any purpose:

"TOPP hereby grants me a royalty-free non-exclusive license to use or
sub-license the Work
assigned hereunder (i.e., if I am assigning changes and enhancements to
the Program to TOPP, the license
granted by TOPP to me is only for those changes and enhancements to the
Program I assigned, it is not for
the Program which I changed or enhanced itself) for any purpose. TOPP's
rights shall otherwise continue
unchanged."

And so you should be able to sublicence it to OSGeo. I think this is
what the second quote means. I'm not sure if you can assign your
copyright again, as you no longer have it. But I am not a lawyer.

My point is that the original author should be able to copy code from
GeoServer to GeoTools, and TOPP should be able to authorise such
copying, but in general, other developers cannot. To do so would allow
rogue developers to sneak out from the clutches of the GPL (imagine some
committing all of GeoServer into the GeoTools repo so they could claim
it as LGPL).

> Generally speaking we never had an automatic mechanism like you describe
> though, to put it in place I believe we'd need quite a bit of red tape.

I think it is an issue that should be addressed. If we go to the effort
of getting contributor agreements, then this issue should be addressed.

--
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Australian Resources Research Centre

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[jody.garnett]

I think the manual step of getting approval from the GeoServer steering committee for this activity is enough to prevent abuse. I am not keen to look into code contribution agreements and so forth at this time.

-- 

Jody Garnett

On Monday, 14 May 2012 at 5:16 PM, Ben Caradoc-Davies wrote:

I think it is an issue that should be addressed. If we go to the effort

of getting contributor agreements, then this issue should be addressed.

--

Ben Caradoc-Davies <[hidden email]>

Software Engineer

CSIRO Earth Science and Resource Engineering

Australian Resources Research Centre

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[Ben Caradoc-Davies]

Agreed. I hope the existing agreements are sufficient for the PSC to
approve code transfers.

On 14/05/12 15:25, Jody Garnett wrote:
> I think the manual step of getting approval from the GeoServer steering committee for this activity is enough to prevent abuse. I am not keen to look into code contribution agreements and so forth at this time.

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[jody.garnett]

They are sufficient.

This is the point of assigning copyright; and having an independent
steering committee.

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On 14/05/2012, at 5:33 PM, Ben Caradoc-Davies
<[hidden email]> wrote:

> Agreed. I hope the existing agreements are sufficient for the PSC to approve code transfers.
>
> On 14/05/12 15:25, Jody Garnett wrote:
>> I think the manual step of getting approval from the GeoServer steering committee for this activity is enough to prevent abuse. I am not keen to look into code contribution agreements and so forth at this time.
>
> --
> Ben Caradoc-Davies <[hidden email]>
> Software Engineer
> CSIRO Earth Science and Resource Engineering
> Australian Resources Research Centre

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[mbedward]

So what needs to be done, administratively, prior to porting the code ?

I'm happy to do the hacking leg-work because it cater for the user
list requests for legend creation - unless someone else has a burning
desire to do it in which case I'd happily defer to them.

Michael


On 14 May 2012 18:27, Jody Garnett <[hidden email]> wrote:
> They are sufficient.
>
> This is the point of assigning copyright; and having an independent
> steering committee.
>
> --
> Jody Garnett

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[geowolf]

On Mon, May 14, 2012 at 11:39 AM, Michael Bedward
<[hidden email]> wrote:
> So what needs to be done, administratively, prior to porting the code ?
>
> I'm happy to do the hacking leg-work because it cater for the user
> list requests for legend creation - unless someone else has a burning
> desire to do it in which case I'd happily defer to them.

Since that code was contribute to by several people I just asked the
PSC on the geoserver-devel list,
you can follow the voting here:
http://osgeo-org.1560.n6.nabble.com/PSC-Motion-allow-porting-portions-of-GetLegendGraphics-back-to-GeoTools-td4974361.html

Hopefully the vote will be quick and un-eventful

Cheers
Andrea

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Via Poggio alle Viti 1187
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Italy

phone: [phone]
fax:      [phone]
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[mbedward]

On 14 May 2012 19:47, Andrea Aime <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> Since that code was contribute to by several people I just asked the
> PSC on the geoserver-devel list,
> you can follow the voting here:
> http://osgeo-org.1560.n6.nabble.com/PSC-Motion-allow-porting-portions-of-GetLegendGraphics-back-to-GeoTools-td4974361.html
>
> Hopefully the vote will be quick and un-eventful
>

Much appreciated Andrea.

Michael

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[geowolf]

On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 11:51 PM, Chris Holmes <[hidden email]> wrote:
> For this case in particular, if we want to move faster, I feel comfortable
> approving the porting of all code done by OpenGeo employees on OpenGeo time
> to GeoTools. It looks like Simone also did some of the work, so I'd say if
> he is also comfortable with porting it over then we have approval. Or we can
> ask the PSC.

Which I already did a few days ago collecting, so far, 6 positive votes:
http://osgeo-org.1560.n6.nabble.com/PSC-Motion-allow-porting-portions-of-GetLegendGraphics-back-to-GeoTools-td4974361.html

I guess we can consider it approved?

Cheers
Andrea

--
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Tech lead

Via Poggio alle Viti 1187
55054  Massarosa (LU)
Italy

phone: [phone]
fax:      [phone]
mob:    [phone]

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[Ben Caradoc-Davies]

Thanks, Chris, that sounds like an ideal solution.

On 16/05/12 05:26, Chris Holmes wrote:
> I think the thing to do is have the PSC set a policy on migrating code from GeoServer to GeoTools. I think it could set some threshold under which moving code over is pre-approved, and that larger commits should ask the PSC? I don't think it has to be a ton of red tape, just a GSIP that we adopt. And then TOPP can reiterate that somehow officially, and not have to ask every time.

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[cholmes]

Yup. Sorry for missing that email, sounds great.

On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 2:02 AM, Andrea Aime <[hidden email]> wrote:

On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 11:51 PM, Chris Holmes <[hidden email]> wrote:
> For this case in particular, if we want to move faster, I feel comfortable
> approving the porting of all code done by OpenGeo employees on OpenGeo time
> to GeoTools. It looks like Simone also did some of the work, so I'd say if
> he is also comfortable with porting it over then we have approval. Or we can
> ask the PSC.

Which I already did a few days ago collecting, so far, 6 positive votes:
http://osgeo-org.1560.n6.nabble.com/PSC-Motion-allow-porting-portions-of-GetLegendGraphics-back-to-GeoTools-td4974361.html

I guess we can consider it approved?

Cheers
Andrea

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