On 1/13/2021 3:58 PM, Howard Butler
wrote:
gdal wouldn't be the first project to change it's license, though I really don't know enough about the consequences others have faced for doing so. Even the revered GPL is a moving target.License monkey business isn't viable in any way with GDAL. It would just create confusion and erode trust, which we can't get back if broken.
If the alternative is a burned out lead developer/maintainer and a dead project, that's not a desirable outcome either.
I'm not sure I agree that changing the license would create confusion and erode trust. Assuming that we (whoever "we" are) actually have the legal right to change the license, let's play a hypothetical.
The new license maintains fees from two classes of users:
1. Anyone incorporating gdal into a product that is
a. not completely open source, and
b. charges a license fee (perpetual or subscription), and
c. has more than x active licenses (x = 500? 1000?)
2. Any for-profit organization utilizing gdal in-house for data analysis, conversion, on-line services, etc, in excess of x CPU hours per year (where y = 1000? 5000?...)
3. Any organization that uses gdal indirectly through a free, open source product (eg, QGIS) or a licensed product covered under 1) above is exempt from 1) and 2).
(Standard caveat - I'm not a lawyer and I'm not proposing this is the actual language of the license. It is intended as a discussion of how we might describe firms who are obligated to pay a license fee. I have deliberately not suggested an actual fee. The number of licensees will be small and I expect each license will be negotiated separately to suit the specific case.)
I don't think I need to name names - you know who the big players are in categories 1 and 2. Only two in category 1 and none in category 2 stepped up with a large (relative to the ask) commitment in the previous barn raising.
By selecting appropriate values for x and y the net result will be a very small number of large (and mostly extremely profitable) firms are covered by the paid license category and they are easily identified. The value they derive from gdal far exceeds whatever might be asked of them to support one (or even several) full-time developers among themselves.
Equally, the vast majority of users will have no question that they continue to operate in the free range. Given that this whole thing started with a suggestion that the only way to make users aware of deprecation of obsolete drivers was to make the drivers stop working, how many users will even be aware of a license change?
For the very few companies right at the boundary, it's not like the gdal license gods are going to audit to see if they have x + 1 or x - 1 active licenses. At some point they will big enough that either they will voluntarily recognize their obligation or someone will call them out on it. It's not like gdal will have legion of lawyers chasing after folks any more than we currently chase those who fail to meet their obligations under the existing license.
I don't see how another one-off barn-raising is a sustainable solution. I looked over the list and none of the companies (and I'm sure it's plural) "running 100,000,000 of CPU hours" contributed last time around. Even if that were to change, how often do you want to go around with your beggar's bowl asking for alms? Unless faced with a license that legally obligates them to contribute, history tells us they will not contribute anything near their fair share (or anything at all, for that matter).
The big organizations running 100,000,000s of CPU hours extracting information from imagery they're reading in COGs with GDAL need to be donating substantial resources into an organization that provides coordination. The last time I did a fund raise with gdalbarn.com I was called out for naming some of these organizations and expressing my disappointment they couldn't find a way to participate or simply ignored the request. Maybe they will step forward this time around.
Absolutely on the mark. Funding has to be provided directly for on-going maintenance. It can't be scraped from a tax on new features. Regardless of whether the structure is a foundation or something else, the compelling issue is whether gdal will survive on voluntary contributions (and all the effort it takes to scrape those together). It hasn't worked in the past. Why will the future be different?
Whether it is in a new foundation or an existing one like NumFocus, substantial resources need to be dumped in a pot that are earmarked for supporting work that generates value for the project. Chasing new feature work to subsidize project maintenance activities is not sustainable in two directions – burn out for the maintainer and creeping feature-itis for the project.
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