[kepler-dev] [Bug 2318] - Copyrights and licenses of subpackages need to be handled

[bugzilla-daemon@ecoinformatics.org]

http://bugzilla.ecoinformatics.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2318





------- Comment #8 from mcphillips at ecoinformatics.org  2008-04-11 15:36 -------
The problem with jar licenses illustrates one good reason to cleanly partition
the Kepler system into a core of essential functionality and a set of (domain-
or technology-specific) extensions that the core does not depend on.  The core
could be kept free of these kinds of licensing entanglements, whereas each
extension would be free to employ a wide range of licensing schemes and depend
on 3rd-party libraries with a similarly diverse set of licenses.  Should
someone distribute a build of the core of Kepler with one or more extensions,
then that distribution might have licensing restrictions that do not apply to
the core when distributed alone or with other combinations of extensions.

In addition, by moving all non-core sources and libraries out of the core
system (and out of the part of the repository hosting the core), and
associating each extension with particular people responsible for maintaining
that extension, it will be clear who is using what parts of Kepler.  If no one
is maintaining or using a particular extension to Kepler, this will be clear
from lack of activity in that part of the repository, and unmaintained
extensions wouldn't clutter up other folks' custom distributions of Kepler
anyway.  As it is, it's very difficult to know what things in the Kepler are
still needed by anyone.