Opened 20 years ago

Last modified 20 years ago

#602 closed enhancement (invalid)

Use Free GPL style licence for ECW ?

Reported by: pierrick.brihaye@… Owned by: warmerdam
Priority: high Milestone:
Component: GDAL_Raster Version: unspecified
Severity: minor Keywords:
Cc:

Description

Hi,

I wonder whether it would be possible to use ECW SDK's Free GPL style licence
for ECW support in GDAL :
http://www.ermapper.com/downloads/download_view.aspx?PRODUCT_VERSION_ID=207

Thus, we could get rid of the 500 Mb limitation :-)

Cheers,

p.b.

Change History (5)

comment:1 by warmerdam, 20 years ago

From my reading of the license agreement it appears you are correct. 

However, to the best of my mind, the ECW SDK 3.x betas are not available
in source form and it isn't clear to me if the new license agreements 
apply to the binary beta releases.

I do think once 3.0 final is released with source we will be allowed to 
compress >500MB files with the resulting builds.  To the best of my knowledge
the API should be the same as the 3.0 betas so there should be no software
changes required in GDAL. 

For that reason, I would like to close this bug report since there isn't
really a bug to fix, or feature to add to the best of my understanding.

comment:2 by pierrick.brihaye@…, 20 years ago

>However, to the best of my mind, the ECW SDK 3.x betas are not available
>in source form

Well... There are :
23 *.h files in the include directory (9 in the 2.46 version)
3 *.lib files in the lib directory (as in the 2.46 version)
4 *.dll files in the bin directory and in the redistributable directory (as in
the 2.46 version).

Notice that apart NCSEcw_control.exe, there is *no* executable file so... shall
v. 3.0b be considered as "not available in source form" ?

>and it isn't clear to me if the new license agreements 
>apply to the binary beta releases.

The "ECW SDK PUBLIC USE LICENSE AGREEMENT" is included in the beta...

>or feature to add to the best of my understanding.

At least, switching to the GPL style licence will (may) require to add some
files, e.g. :

>You may copy and distribute the Software in unmodified form provided that the
entire package, including - but not restricted to - copyright, trademark notices
and disclaimers, as released by the initial developer of the Software, is
distributed. 
>You must include this license document in the distribution.

Anyway, this would better be reconsidered when v. 3.0 final is out.

Cheers,

p.b.


comment:3 by warmerdam, 20 years ago

Pierrick,

They are still providing a binary SDK release as far as I know.  (the
.lib and .dlls are built from the source).  Till we have the original source
files (.c or .cpp) we can't really imagine applying GPLish licensing conditions.

However, once 3.0 final is out I am excited about the possibilities. 


comment:4 by pierrick.brihaye@…, 20 years ago

Frank,

Fair enough.

What do you think about the *current* implementation of ECW in GDAL ? You don't
have the original source files, do you ?

Wait an see :-)

Cheers,

p.b.

comment:5 by warmerdam, 20 years ago

Pierrick,

I have the code for the ECW driver binding within GDAL but not for the low 
level ECW library into which it calls.  I think it works fine though I don't
use it personally too often.  I also think that when the ECW SDK source is
available, it will be API compatiable, so we just recompile GDAL to use the
source release. 


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