Thanks for taking this up for us Frank - you rock. I will ask the approriate geotools module maintains (cough Martin and Myself) to make a note for our own review.txt files ;-)
Cheers, > Folks, > > One of the licensing issues for GDAL/OGR and software packages built > on GDAL, PROJ.4 or libgeotiff was that we weren't distributing *complete* > versions of the EPSG coordinate systems. Apparently this also affected > one of the GeoTools "from EPSG" coordinate systems factories but not > another. > > I contacted EPSG and they are planning to relax the requirement though a > released version with the relaxed constraints may not be available for a > while. I'll document this in the GDAL provenance review, and hope that > this "rectification is under way" situation will be sufficient since it > makes it clear that OGP (the EPSG folks) won't be interested in any legal > action. > > Best regards, > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > Subject: > Re: EPSG "Use of the data" Requirements > From: > "Roger Lott \(EPSG\)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Date: > Thu, 20 Jul 2006 21:17:26 +0100 > To: > "Frank Warmerdam" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > To: > "Frank Warmerdam" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > CC: > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Geodetic Subcommittee OGP" > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > Frank, > > The OGP Geodesy Working Group discussed your request at today's > meeting. We understand the problem and are sympathetic to your request > to review our requirements. We feel that we need to change the current > wording, but it will take us some weeks to finalise replacement. We > anticipate a revised version of the dataset (v6.11) being published in > the first half of August. It is most unlikely that we will have > completed our conditions of use rewording for this release, and it > will probably carry the existing wording. > > Feel free to circulate this information to your open source project > colleagues to keep them aware. > > Regards, > > Roger Lott > > *Frank Warmerdam <[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>>* > Envoyé par : Frank Warmerdam <[EMAIL PROTECTED] > <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> > > 10/07/2006 22:47 > > > A > [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > cc > OSGeo-incubator <[EMAIL PROTECTED] > <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> > Objet > EPSG "Use of the data" Requirements > > > > > > > > > > Bernard, > > I am writing on behalf of several open source projects currently using > coordinate system lists derived from the EPSG database. I have > copied the > following from the README .doc file distributed with a somewhat recent > version of the database: > > 1) All data pertinent to a specific coordinate reference system > must be > copied without modification and all related pages/records must be > included; > 2) All components of this data set pertinent to any given > coordinate > reference system must be distributed together (complete > distribution of all > components of the data set is preferred, but the OGP recognises > the need for > a more limited distribution); > > My concern is that these projects mostly just distributed lists of > coordinate systems derived from the EPSG files, but expressed in > another > format such as OGC Well Known Text, or PROJ.4 initialization > strings. The > problem with this is that such representations clearly violate > items (1) and > (2). That is, they don't include all data about the coordinate > system, nor > do they include all related records. For instance, fields like > "remarks" > cannot be represented in WKT. And related records such as from > the area > of use table are generally not included. > > So, I would like to petition the OGP Surveying and Positioning > committee > to relax items (1) and (2) to not being requirements, but rather > requests. > > I would add that even the requirement that information be copied > without > modification is hard to adhere to, when some representations do > not support > the form the data is presented in the EPSG databse. For instance, the > OGC WKT format only supports specifying ellipsoids as semi-major > length and > inverse flattening. Thus, ellipsoids specified in the EPSG dataset as > semi-major and semi-minor will be distributed in a modified form, > in violation > of (1). > > I realize that the OGP has little interest in bringing legal > action over > such minor technical violations of the use terms, but as part of the > formation of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation there is an ongoing > effort to bring our projects (GDAL and Geotool in this case) into > *strict* > compliance with the licensing terms of all components. I hope > that you > will also see value in modifing your terms so that they can be adhered > to in a variety of usage scenarios. > > I would add that similar issues apply to libgeotiff, PROJ.4 and a > variety > of other packages. In addition to affecting a variety of open source > packages, these issues also affect a wide variety of proprietary > software > vendors who build on these packages. For instance, the GeoTIFF using > community is "at risk". > > Best regards, > -- > > ---------------------------------------+-------------------------------------- > I set the clouds in motion - turn up | Frank Warmerdam, > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam > and watch the world go round - Rush | President OSGF, > http://osgeo.org > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Take Surveys. Earn Cash. 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