Copyright Headers in Source Code Files

OSGeo has now received legal advice on copyright headers in source code files. This advice is summarised here for the benefit of all projects:

• Copyright headers in source code files are not required to enforce copyright.
• Works still under copyright when the Berne Convention was adopted (1992 in the United States) are protected under this convention.
• Works created after the Berne Convention was adopted are also protected.
• There is no need to include a copyright header for a source code file created or modified after the Berne Convention was adopted. A modified source code file is a new work.
• Source code files created before the adoption of the Berne Convention and not modified since its adoption should include a copyright header with the dates of creation and modification. These dates support the assertion that these files are covered by the Berne Convention.
• A header that names the project, links to the project page, and references the licence is informative, and while not legally binding, might deter some infringers (at least they were warned file-by-file that the code is open source).
• Both individual source code files and the project source as a whole are copyrighted works.

GeoTools was first published in 1996. Project policy requires a copyright header in source code files; these should be seen as informative, and are not required to enforce copyright. See GeoTools Header Policy Updated for details. 

Note that the authors of this blog post are not lawyers and this post has not been reviewed by a lawyer. This post should not be construed as legal advice.

FOSS4G 2016 Workshops

GeoTools Workshops at FOSS4G 2016 in Bonn, 22nd August

This year the GeoTools team are pleased to announce that there are two workshops available to help you get up to speed on using and extending GeoTools accepted at the annual OSGeo FOSS4G conference.

• Monday 22 August 9-13 WS03: Introduction to GeoTools
• Monday 22 August 14-18 WS14: GeoTools DataStore Workshop

Both of these workshops are Java Development workshops - so not only can you bring your own device - you can bring your own IDE. One instructor will be using Eclipse and the other Netbeans (command line and vi welcome). The instructors are experienced core developers of GeoTools from Boundless and Astun Technology who spend both their working days and free time developing GeoTools and are looking forward to helping you do the same.

Introduction to GeoTools

The first workshop is in the morning of Monday 22nd August provides you with a hands on introduction to GeoTools.

For those new to the GeoSpatial scene we provide an introduction to spatial concepts and how to avoid common pitfalls. The workshop offers a steady series of workbooks introducing:

• Feature creation
• Geometry, Coordinate Reference Systems and Re-projection
• Spatial Queries
• Handling large format rasters
• Working with Style
• Raster Operations

Covering both the concepts and the science of map making the workbooks serve as an excellent reference, but the focus is always on you and the code you need to get the job done.

Please visit the FOSS4G registration pages to sign up for this popular workshop.

GeoTools DataStore Workshop

The second workshop follows directly after the Monday lunch break explores how to extend GeoTools to handle a new datatype. This also allows you to add new data types to any program built using GeoTools such as GeoServer and UDig. This workshop will take a detailed look at how vector data is handled. As an implementer GeoTools provides facilities for automatic handling of advanced functionality: thread safety, transactions with rollback and dynamic reprojection.
You will leave this course with a custom “DataStore” implementation that can be dropped into an application such as GeoServer.

Rush to the FOSS4G registration pages before places run out for these and other exciting workshops!

Code Sprint

FOSS4G has two code sprints this year, the first run concurrently with the workshops, and the second (attended by the GeoTools and GeoServer community) run after the event on Saturday/Sunday.

If you would like to join us please sign up on the OSGeo wiki. Already we have some great ideas on improving SLD interoperability.  Part of this work will build on the GeoTools workshops, creating additional functions for compatibility.