Re: [Geotools-gt2-users] Unethical use of GeoAPI library in Geotools

[Stephane F. <ste...@im...>]

Jody,

I understand that GeoAPI was an original idea of Geotools, but since 2003
the ownership of GeoAPI has been transferred to OGC. It is very unfortunate
Geotools have not managed to keep up with the changes of API , as I believe
GeoAPI could vastly benefit from the feedback from Geotools community, but
also Geotools could gain wider acceptance by embracing the latest standard.
The fact that Geotools uses an old or may be different version (which one
is not clear) of GeoAPI makes it very difficult to use other competing
libraries (Geotookit, Apache SIS, Degree etc..). If Geotools cannot commit
to support the library, then you should not use it anymore and change the
package name to avoid confusion but also conflict of libraries. Do you
think it would be right, if I use for example Lucene library and make
changes to it without changing the package name and then publish it out and
disguise it behind a different jar file name ? The authority for GeoAPI is
OGC and Geotools should comply with the licensing terms. I think this
situation needs to be addressed urgently by Geotools community.

Best regards
Stephane





On Thu, Feb 19, 2015 at 12:34 PM, Jody Garnett <jod...@gm...>
wrote:

> Thanks for contacting us Stephane.
>
> GeoAPI is an original outreach project of the GeoTools library (many of
> the interfaces originally started in our project). We did indeed stay
> behind with an earlier version to preserve backward compatibility (projects
> using GeoTools could not keep up with the API change involved in tracking
> the latest standards).
>
> If sponsors are available to fund the update we would be happy to make use
> of a newer copy of GeoAPI. This is why we have not changed the package
> names. Indeed yours is the first request on the user list to upgrade and I
> am happy to hear from you :)
>
> If you know of any group willing to volunteer/sponsor the work we would be
> glad to hear from them. If it helps we can write up your proposal formally
> and estimate the level of effort involved.
> --
> Jody
>
>
> --
> Jody Garnett
>
> On 19 February 2015 at 08:48, Stephane Fellah <
> ste...@im...> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I would like to express my frustration to the Geotools community about
>> the unethical use of GeoAPI in the library. I have been a user and big fan
>> of Geotools for many years, but I am also using other libraries such Apache
>> SIS and Geotookit to explore new way to use OpenGIS services and
>> standards.  For example Geotookit and Apache SIS have an excellent support
>> for parsing ISO 19139 and Geotools has a mature support for handling the
>> different versions of WMS and WFS. I ran into serious issue recently about
>> jar dependencies when I try to use all these libraries together. The main
>> issue is the usage of GeoAPI.
>>
>> Geotools has a library called gt-opengis that uses the same domain than
>> GeoAPI (org.opengis).  Here is an example of issue I ran  into:
>>
>> I am using gtk-metadata-4.0-M1 which uses geoapi-pending-3.1-M04 (for
>> parsing ISO 19139) and I have another plugin for parsing WMS that uses
>> Geotools gt-wms-12.1 and depends on gt-opengis-12.1.
>> When I run my parser for ISO 19139, I run into library conflict on the
>> signature for CodeList.
>>
>> Caused by: java.lang.NoSuchMethodError:
>> org.opengis.util.CodeList.valueOf(Ljava/lang/Class;Lorg/opengis/util/CodeList$Filter;)Lorg/opengis/util/CodeList;
>> at org.apache.sis.util.iso.Types.forCodeName(Types.java:526)
>> at
>> org.apache.sis.internal.jaxb.gmd.CodeListAdapter.unmarshal(CodeListAdapter.java:120)
>> at
>> org.apache.sis.internal.jaxb.gmd.CodeListAdapter.unmarshal(CodeListAdapter.java:52)
>> at
>> com.sun.xml.bind.v2.runtime.reflect.AdaptedAccessor.set(AdaptedAccessor.java:85)
>> at com.sun.xml.bind.v2.runtime.reflect.Accessor.receive(Accessor.java:171)
>> at
>> com.sun.xml.bind.v2.runtime.unmarshaller.UnmarshallingContext.endElement(UnmarshallingContext.java:523)
>> at
>> com.sun.xml.bind.v2.runtime.unmarshaller.SAXConnector.endElement(SAXConnector.java:160)
>> at org.apache.xerces.parsers.AbstractSAXParser.endElement(Unknown Source)
>> at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLNSDocumentScannerImpl.scanEndElement(Unknown
>> Source)
>> at
>> org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl$FragmentContentDispatcher.dispatch(Unknown
>> Source)
>> at
>> org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.scanDocument(Unknown
>> Source)
>>
>> The issue comes from the fact the gt-opengis-12.1 takes precedence in the
>> classloader (it uses the same class name).  There is no simple solution to
>> solve this problem, either writing your own classloader or using a
>> framework like OGSI. Both requires extensive work and expertise.
>>
>> Geotools has copied some early version of GeoAPI using the namespace
>> org.opengis that GeoAPI owns and created a fork of the API that is
>> incompatible with the current GeoAPI version. I think the appropriation of
>> the namespace org.opengis and making modification of the API that are not
>> compliant with the standard is unethical (and probably in breach with the
>> OGC licensing terms).
>>
>> I see two solutions to this problem:
>>
>> 1) Rename the package org.opengis to org.geotools.opengis and they do
>> whatever you want with it
>> 2) Align with the standard GeoAPI 3.0.0, which was voted and approved by
>> OGC and then participate to the SWG at OGC to drive future developments of
>> GeoAPI based on the requirements of Geotools community.
>>
>> I would favor the second solution, but I can understand that may require
>> more work to refactor. So in the meantime, the quick solution would be
>> apply solution 1 (changing package name), until a plan to align to GeoAPI
>> is put in place for future version.
>>
>> Best regards
>>
>>
>> --
>> Stephane Fellah
>> Chief  Knowledge Scientist
>> Image Matters LLC
>> Office: +(703) 669 5510
>> Cell: 703 431 9420
>>
>>
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>>
>


-- 
Stephane Fellah
Chief  Knowledge Scientist
Image Matters LLC
Office: +(703) 669 5510
Cell: 703 431 9420