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Re: Net CDF for Java - Eclipse Checking IN

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  • Subject: Re: Net CDF for Java - Eclipse Checking IN
  • Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2015 12:03:37 -0600
Hi Sharon:

1) Almost all content is authored by UCAR employees. Where it isnt, copyright has been left as original. For minor stuff (patches and bug fixes), we rely on ucar's terms of use.

2) We switched to MIT license, the same as netcdf C library uses, 10 or more years ago. Nothing changed since.

3) We use maven to bring in 3rd party dependencies, ie dont distribute 3rd party source code. The sort-of-exception to that is the jj2000 code, used to read JPEG-2000 compressed GRIB files. This is an abandoned project which we put into a Unidata git repository, and have made a few bug fixes on. JPEG-2000 may have submarine patents etc, and its licensing is ambiguous and/or hostile. Its an optional part of netCDF-Java, although GRIB is an important part of why people want to use netCDF-Java. If the jar file is present on the classpath, we will use it. So if you exclude it, you might want to add instructions on how a user could add it back if they choose.

Im cc'ing my colleague Christian Ward-Garrison; you should include him and/or the support email for further conversations.

Thanks,
John



On Tue, Jun 30, 2015 at 9:57 AM, Sharon Corbett <address@hidden> wrote:

Greetings John;

 

Eclipse [1] is currently performing due diligence on a third party library that one of our projects wishes to redistribute and that third party lib includes content from Net CDF for Java.  As part of our review, we'd like your help to understand the provenance and applicable licensing for Net CDF for Java.  To that end, I include a few quick questions for you, as follows:

1.  From checking out the project's page [2] and github site [3], it would appear that most (if not all) content has been authored solely by unidata (ucar) employees?  If that is not 100% the case, we would like to understand what, if any, contribution mechanism the project uses (for eg. formal CLA or email confirmation of user's rights to contribute and agreement to project license)?  Or does the project simply rely solely on the ucar's terms of use [4].

 

2.  We understand the project was originally LGPL licensed and is now MIT Licensed.  Has there been any other license changes?

 

3.  Finally does, Net CDF for java redistribute and any third party content itself?

 

Thanks in advance for your time.

 

[1]  www.eclipse.org

[2] https://www.unidata.ucar.edu/blogs/news/entry/netcdf_java_library_version_44

[3] https://github.com/Unidata/thredds

[4] http://www2.ucar.edu/terms-of-use


Kind Regards,
Sharon

 

Sharon Corbett

Intellectual Property

Eclipse Foundation Inc.