LAZ support for liblas library

[kempenep]

It seems laszip is not installed. This has consequences for derived packages. For instance, the liblas API uses laszip for LAZ support (the lossless compression format of LAS). Packages that rely on the liblas library can therefore not support LAZ files either. Possibly, other packages are impacted as well (GRASS, lastools, ....?)

suggestion: 1) include laszip 2) enable LAZ support in cmake liblas (and potentially other packages)

[Bas Couwenberg]

​LASzip is not yet packaged for Debian and derivatives, OSGeo-Live will have to use install scripts to support LAZ in libLAS until LASzip is packaged (there is not ITP yet).

[Bas Couwenberg]

There is now LASzip packaging, see:

• ​Debian Bug #750731 ITP: laszip -- Lossless LiDAR compression
• ​git repository for the laszip package

Unfortunately the LASzip source uses a modified copy of the FastAC (​Readme, ​Source) algorithm whose license doesn't allow modification making it incompatible with the LGPL-2.1 license used by LASzip. See the thread started by the Debian FTP master feedback:

​Comments regarding laszip_2.2.0-1_amd64.changes

I've contacted the FastAC authors asking them to consider relicensing the code, Amir Said replied that he would be glad to see it used in Free Software projects and asked what they needed to do. I've recommended using the ​BSD-2-Clause license which is close to the currently license of FastAC and most widely compatible with other Free Software licenses.

It has been very quiet ever since. I'll contact the libLAS & LASzip authors to restart the discussion around the troublesome FastAC code to hopefully get this issue resolved.

[kalxas]

I would like to see the license resolution before moving forward with this.

[Bas Couwenberg]

Replying to kalxas:

I would like to see the license resolution before moving forward with this.

So do I. Unfortunately there has been no progress on the FastAC licensing since I last contacted Amir Said (in January 2015), I'll ping him again since it's been over a year now.

[TemptorSent]

There is an alternate laszip library that appears to not be encumbered called laz-perf at ​https://github.com/hobu/laz-perf -- a cursory audit shows no obvious IP or license issues.

[darkblueb]

bump 12dev; lasinfo shows version 1.8.1 , no laszip ?

[Bas Couwenberg]

The LASzip license issue remains unresolved, so no LAZ support in libLAS.

Note that liblas is in maintenance mode, and no longer actively developed.

PDAL should be used instead, and is affected by the LASzip issue just like libLAS.

[Bas Couwenberg]

Quoting myself in the ​upstream issue:

Thanks for Tom "spot" Callaway of RedHat for Fedora Legal, the FastAC authors have agreed to relicense their code under the BSD-2-Clause license, see the attachments in the Bugzilla issue:

​Bug 1674537 - LASzip contains FastAC code which does not allow modification

Direct links:

• ​BSD_Relicense_of_FastAC_code.pdf
  Contains the email thread between Tom Callaway, Amir Said & William (Bill) Pearlman
• ​new-fastac-header.txt
  The updated license header for the FastAC code

There is no new release of the FastAC code yet, once that's available the license issue preventing distributions from distributing LASzip should be resolved.

[Bas Couwenberg]

liblas is being removed from Debian (grass & pktools no longer build with it), it should likewise be removed from OSGeoLive.

GRASS supports PDAL, pktools does not. cloudcompare also only uses PDAL.