Hi Bart, Cameron and lists,
Now it's time to de-lurk I guess. I've been subscribed to these lists
for some time now and this is my first post.
OSGeo Discuss members: this is a discussion started by Cameron Shorter,
2 posts down in this email.
As Cameron points out: for our organisation the GPL (v3) license is too
restrictive.
Bart, we have looked at the exceptions as pointed out in the URL you
provided [1]. Unfortunately section 2.e says:
"Your Extension can reasonably be considered to be adding to or
modifying standard functionality of the Library for software
development purposes and not an independent and separate Application
in itself."
This would surely cause our applications (proprietary or not) to fail to
comply with ExtJS' exception.
Trying to convince the GeoExt community to move to another JS library
seems to me like advising protestants to become catholics. There is a
place for both and in my personal opinion: no need to convert anone from
their belief to another.
In order to attract a broader audience I send this email to the OSGeo
discuss list as well. We would like to know if there are others out
there that share our interest in the GeoExt development and our concerns
in regards to the licensing issues that surround it.
Is there room for another project that wants to achieve a similar goal
as GeoExt but uses a less restrictively licensed JS library (like
jQuery's dual GPL/MIT license) and would there be interest from the
OSGeo-minded community to join forces to achieve that goal?
Kind regards,
Roald
[1] http://extjs.com/products/ux-exception.php
--
Roald de Wit
Software Engineer
roald.de...@lisasoft.com
Commercial Support for Open Source GIS Software
http://lisasoft.com/LISAsoft/SupportedProducts/
bart...@osgis.nl wrote:
Hi Cameron,
your second point was also discussed at the BOF in Capetown. There was
talk of starting a general project integrating more than 1 javascript UI
library with OpenLayers, but at the BOF it was decided not to do this. We
are "limiting" ourselves to ExtJS, and GeoExt is meant for that. Other
projects can startup to integrate OpenLayers with other UI libs.
Wrt your first point (license), it seems there might be an exception for
GeoExt based on:
http://extjs.com/products/ux-exception.php
See also this thread:
http://lists.opengeo.org/geoext/archive/2008/11/1225900443068
Also you can always buy a commercial ExtJS license.
This week's meeting (wednesday) will discuss the license:
http://www.geoext.org/trac/geoext/wiki/meetings/2008_12_16
Best regards,
Bart
Hello geoext developers,
As a manager at LISAsoft, we are interested in the progress of GeoExt.
In particular, I'm impressed with the line up of developers floating on
this email list.
However, we are concerned about the commercial unfriendly GPL license of
ExtJS. Especially based on the track record of the ExtJS owners who have
a track record of changing and restricting the license to their software.
See: http://pablotron.org/?cid=1556
An alternative library to ExtJS is JQuery. LISAsoft developers have been
working with JQuery recently and are reporting good results. If others
are interested, we have a number of widgets based on JQuery which we
have developed, or are about to develop, which we can incorporate into a
MapFish/GeoExt type library if there is a desire for this.
My developers are continually singing the praises of JQuery, and the
strength of the community behind it. Feel free to ask questions of them
if you wish.
So ultimately,
How committed is everyone to GPL? Are people prepared to use a less
restrictive license?
How committed is everyone to ExtJS? Have you committed too much effort
toward ExtJS to consider using something else?
Cedric Moullet wrote:
Hi,
You have probably heard about GeoExt. GeoExt is a client side library
based on ExtJS and OpenLayers. The creation of this library has been
initiated at Foss4G 2008. www.geoext.org is now online and several
discussions already occured on the geoext mailing list, mainly between
OpenGeo & Camptocamp teams and also with others.
The main goal of GeoExt is to provide an easy to use library for
building rich web mapping GUI.
We'd like to know if persons are interested to contribute and/or
participate to the creation of this library. If this is the case, please
enter your name on the following WIKI page
http://www.geoext.org/trac/geoext/wiki/CallParticipation or send me an
email back.
As initial contribution, the existing MapFish client code will be
transferred into GeoExt. The MapFish project will use GeoExt library.
We look forward for your participation in this library.
Regards,
Cédric
--
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Systems Architect
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254
Think Globally, Fix Locally
Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
http://www.lisasoft.com
--
Archive: http://lists.opengeo.org/geoext/archive/2008/12/12293373
