Difference between revisions of "Requests for Comments-12: Changing licence to Apache v2.0"
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The goal is to change of license for OTB to adopt the Apache v2.0 license. The rational for this change is as follows : | The goal is to change of license for OTB to adopt the Apache v2.0 license. The rational for this change is as follows : | ||
| − | For some time now, the OTB community is considering a licensing change for OTB to | + | For some time now, the OTB community is considering a licensing change for OTB to move from CeCILL v2 to the Apache v2 license. |
Copyleft is a very good protection for open-source software in general, as it ensures that it will remain open. But in the current context where OTB can be useful, copyleft may also restrict the use of the library. With hindsight, we observed that OTB was considered by many institutions and companies as part of their project, and the choice of its integration in their solutions could sometines not succeed because they ( or their clients or partners) wanted to distribute their solutions, integrating OTB under different terms. | Copyleft is a very good protection for open-source software in general, as it ensures that it will remain open. But in the current context where OTB can be useful, copyleft may also restrict the use of the library. With hindsight, we observed that OTB was considered by many institutions and companies as part of their project, and the choice of its integration in their solutions could sometines not succeed because they ( or their clients or partners) wanted to distribute their solutions, integrating OTB under different terms. | ||
Revision as of 09:52, 21 October 2016
Contents
Status
- Not submitted yet
Content
What changes will be made and why they will make a better Orfeo ToolBox
The goal is to change of license for OTB to adopt the Apache v2.0 license. The rational for this change is as follows :
For some time now, the OTB community is considering a licensing change for OTB to move from CeCILL v2 to the Apache v2 license.
Copyleft is a very good protection for open-source software in general, as it ensures that it will remain open. But in the current context where OTB can be useful, copyleft may also restrict the use of the library. With hindsight, we observed that OTB was considered by many institutions and companies as part of their project, and the choice of its integration in their solutions could sometines not succeed because they ( or their clients or partners) wanted to distribute their solutions, integrating OTB under different terms.
This has sometimes caused individual and expensive schemes to include OTB in projects and still respect the license requirements. We've tried to convince our partners that copyleft is not "dangerous", but we note with regret that these arguments do not work and that the OTB thus not meet the public that it deserves. So we, from a practical standpoint, think that a more permissive license could only increase interest in the OTB and help its development and also the development of the community of contributors.
This licensing change also means better management of contributors with the implementation of specific documents to respect the rights of the latter.
With a growing number of contributions, it has been now mandatory to improve the management of contributor. For example in the case of a change made necessary by a license update it. We would need to seek permission from each contributor (thing still possible at this stage but would quickly become impossible if one of them simply disappears).
Two options were open to us regarding the improvement of contributions management:
- Request an assignment of copyright, in which case the project owner will own the economic rights of authors and will be able to take further action on the distribution of the contribution, or - Ask a wide license on the contribution while leaving the copyright to the contributor.
We prefer the second option because there is no reason that contributors resign their copyrights.
A better contribution management for OTB will be of course better for contributors but also for potential users as it will reassures that the software contains no infringing item.
This licensing change will also allow be part of the initiative to make the project governance more open to any potential contributors following the establishment of the OTB steering committee in March 2015.
Roadmap
-
Check compatibility of OTB projects third partyWe've checked that all third party library are compatible
We've taken the opportunity of the license modification to do clarify some third parties integration :
- OSSIM plugins contributions from OTB will be moved to MIT license (following recent changes of OSSIM license from LGPL to MIT)
- We add a special notice regarding the integration 6S and related terms.
- SIFTFast is released under LGPL and we still be integrated in OTB (not compiled by default).
- Contributors agreement
We asked pas t contributors to sign an agreement to ask them to re-license their contributions (adapted from Apache Software Grant).
OTB will have to adopt this type of CLA for future contributors.
- Apply changes to OTB source code
Modifications to the source code will be done in a feature branch with a script to automate the procedure (https://git.orfeo-toolbox.org/otb-devutils.git/tree/HEAD:/LicenseMigration).
- Update documentation
- Update info about otb license on: otb website, sourceforge, openhub,put CLA on OTB website
We suggest that if the license modification is approved by the PSC then it should lead to a new major version of OTB (version 6.0)
When will those changes be available (target release or date)
Discussion about changing the license was initiated in 2015 on the OTB blog (https://www.orfeo-toolbox.org/wind-of-changes/).
