Re: [Vxl-maintainers] Request for TargetJr Consortium Information

[Joseph M. <mu...@le...>]

Dear All,

I was there at the beginning, as was Peter and Don. Before VXL was TargetJr,
a large C++ environment for computer vision, developed by my group at GE for
various company projects. Eventually we started collaborating with
universities, such as Oxford, and decided to release the code to open
source. The wording of the TargetJr copyright was meant to allow unfettered
use of the code without the need to "copy left." Thus, commercial uses of
the code could be implemented without restriction.  Later, a Darpa-sponsored
project, called the Image Understanding Environment (IUE), attempted to
create a much more extensive set of C++ libraries for computer vision,
including what is now VNL. Near the end of the IUE project, Oxford took the
lead in restructuring both the IUE and TargetJr into what is now VXL.  VXL
just adopted the original TargetJr copyright without any deep consideration.


 

I would say that GE is no longer of importance with respect to VXL copyright
issues. The original motivation for the TargetJr consortium is no longer
relevant since TargetJr is not actively used at this point. My suggestion is
to just replace the TargetJr notice  with a new VXL copyright notice. It is
unlikely that GE lawyers will be of any help and may create barriers out of
a sense of caution.

 

Joe

 

From: Wheeler, Frederick W (GE Global Research) [mailto:wh...@ge...] 
Sent: Sunday, June 02, 2013 8:00 AM
To: Matt Leotta; Vxl-maintainers
Cc: Hamilton, Donald W (GE Global Research); Luis Ibanez; Tu, Peter (GE
Global Research)
Subject: Re: [Vxl-maintainers] Request for TargetJr Consortium Information

 

 

I am happy to be the GE interface to help figure this out.  However, I came
to GE in late 2000 and started using VXL around 2001, which was just about a
year after VXL got started and this consortium was formed.  So, I do not
know the answers to any of these questions myself.  There are other folks on
this email who may know the answers, or who at least know more of the
background to help me get better answers.  Does anyone else know any of the
background before I start cold calling our legal department?

 

Pretty cool that VXL has gone from CVS to SVN to GIT, and the commit log for
vxl_copyright.h is preserved back to February 2000!

 

Fred

 

 

From: Matt Leotta [mailto:mat...@ki...] 
Sent: Friday, May 31, 2013 4:39 PM
To: Wheeler, Frederick W (GE Global Research); Vxl-maintainers
Cc: Luis Ibanez
Subject: Request for TargetJr Consortium Information

 

The VXL license file (core/vxl_copyright.h) assigns VXL copyright to the
TargetJr Consortium (represented by GE CRD).  What I'd like to know is:

 

Who are the members of this consortium?  

Can I join the consortium?  

Can Kitware, Inc join the consortium?

Can information about the consortium and it's members be made public?

 

I think the Insight Software Consortium
(http://www.insightsoftwareconsortium.org/) used by ITK does a good job of
making these things very transparent.  I'm hoping VXL can follow ITK's lead.
ITK is also a good model because the consortium involves many of the same
members and ITK has close ties to VXL (via dependency on vnl).

 

There are other issues with the license file I'd like to address, but let's
start with the consortium.

 

This request is mainly targeted toward maintainers at GE, but maybe some of
the other VXL founders will have answer.  Fred, I'm defaulting to you. Can
you connect me with someone at GE who knows the answers?

 

Thanks,

Matt