Hello Jörg,
This is really great news. I am of course delighted because it would
mean we can distribute it, thus having a better user experience for
newbies. But Andreas knows more about what is to do to accept this
contribution, such a thing was done in the past with PADAF (now
Preflight) donated by atos worldline.
Tilman
Am 26.06.2017 um 15:36 schrieb Jörg Henne:
Hi all,
Apache PDFBox currently uses the JBig2 ImageIO-Plugin at
https://github.com/levigo/jbig2-imageio as an optional component and
recommends the use of it at
https://pdfbox.apache.org/2.0/dependencies.html. I am writing this as
a representative of the ISV levigo, the owner and publisher of this
component. Besides being an open source component we use the component
on our own software suite. Over the years we have invested significant
time into it and have been maintaining it for many years so that I
would consider its code-base reasonably mature and stable. However, we
continue to address any bugs reported to us and have accepted several
community-provided fixes.
The plugin in question is currently licensed under the GNU General
Public License V3 with other licensing options available, including
commercial licensing. Having PDFBox under the ASL and the plugin under
a different license has long been a nuisance for PDFBox users which
has deterred many users fron using it. On the other hand, many users
have a strong need for it as our plugin is (IMHO) still the highest
quality pure-Java open source decoder available.
We would like to change this situation by licensing the plugin under
the ASL. At the same time, however, we think that it would make sense
to move the code base over to a new home that makes it independent of
a single vendor. That's where the ASF and the PDFBox project comes
into play :-)
We are currently in the very early stages of evaluating such a
transition. A few random thoughts:
- All of those thoughts are subject to the PDFBox community being
willing to do this and accepting the contribution, obviously.
- One of the reasons for us to favor the ASF as a new home is that the
ASF has strong provisions in place to ensure that a project can thrive
without it being dependent on life-support by a single vendor.
- We need to do proper IP vetting: while the vast majority has been
done by levigo there is one other GitHub committer who has provided
bug fixes and whom we need to talk to.
- Package names and maven coordinates will have to be updated to
reflect the transition
- After a transition colleagues of mine would continue to contribute
to the maintenance of the component. The necessary committer rights
would need to be bestowed upon them. I myself have been an Apache
committed for many years, albeit almost completely inactive.
- It would make sense (and is required by the Apache rules) to have
additional know-how about the component outside of levigo. I don't
know whether there is enough interest in the PDFBox community to
ensure this.
So that's it for now, I guess. Please let me know what you think.
Jörg Henne
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