Re: Mapbox GL plugin removed from QtLocation package

Hi Dmitry,

Packaging it as a separated .deb sounds like a good idea to me.

All the dependencies at the 3rd party are header only and a good chunk developed by

Mapbox itself (but internally we reuse them inother projects). Not sure if it would be worth

packaging them separately and as a dependency to the plugin package.

We use this explicitly because we would like to lock into a version that we run tests

and consider the Mapbox GL as a whole stable. It would not cause duplication in

binary code, as they are C++ templates and get inlined anyway.

About the json.org and JSON_checker code, it is not shipped into the Mapbox Qt,

source or binary. That LICENSE.md file covers the whole mapbox-gl-native repo

before stripping the unused code for the Qt build.

- json.org code we use for our Android SDK (that got stripped out from the package)

https://github.com/mapbox/mapbox-gl-native/blob/master/platform/android/MapboxGLAndroidSDKTestApp/src/main/java/com/mapbox/mapboxsdk/testapp/utils/GeoParseUtil.java#L8

- JSON_checker is used by Rapid JSON test suite (also removed from the package)

https://github.com/Tencent/rapidjson/tree/master/bin/jsonchecker

I think I should remove the LICENSE.md file from that repo and keep only this one:

https://github.com/mapbox/mapbox-gl-native/blob/qt-staging/qt_attribution.json

Would that suffice?

Br,

On Tue, Dec 19, 2017 at 10:43 PM, Dmitry Shachnev <mitya57@debian.org> wrote:

Hi Thiago, and thanks for contacting us!

On Tue, Dec 19, 2017 at 04:33:51PM -0300, Lisandro Damián Nicanor Pérez Meyer wrote:
> On jueves, 7 de diciembre de 2017 13:48:01 -03 Thiago Santos wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I noticed that the Mapbox GL plugin was removed from the QtLocation package:
> > https://lists.debian.org/debian-qt-kde/2017/06/msg00137.html
> >
> > Reason being binary size and copyright issues. How can I help the package
> > maintainers address these issues and get Mapbox GL back? What are the
> > copyright issues?
> >
> > Mapbox GL is a modern open source vector maps rendering engine and despite the
> > name, is not vendor locked to Mapbox and can be used with self-hosted maps.
> > I believe
> > it can contribute a lot for the quality of applications made with Qt.
>
> I've checked the 5.10 tarball and the size of the 3rd party code has
> diminished, but it's definitely a whole lot of embedded 3rd party stuff.
>
> I recommend you to get mapbox properly packaged and then we can work out how
> to link it from within QT Location.

Lisandro is right, it is better to have it packaged on itself rather than
as part of Qt Location module.

Just for the record, here are the major issues with Mapbox GL codebase:

- It embeds a lot of 3rd party stuff, which is discouraged in Debian.
See https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/#convenience-copies-of-code.

- It contains copies of json.org and JSON_checker which are licensed under
a non-DFSG license.
See https://wiki.debian.org/DFSGLicenses#JSON_evil_license.

Maybe something else that I do not remember.

--
Dmitry Shachnev