Proposal to change lisence for ARIA-tools and ARIA-tools-docs

[dbekaert]

Proposal: Change GPL-3.0 license to Apache 2 license,

ARIA-tools and ARIA-tools-docs developers,

This repository is currently licensed under the terms and conditions of the GPL-3.0 license. GPL-3.0 is copy-left which requires downstream projects to use the same license, prohibits commercial use, and is not the general direction which NASA is moving towards with open-science/TOPS.

We would like to change the license from GNU-3 to Apache 2 in order to align with NASA open-science/ TOPS guidance and be less restrictive to downstream projects.

Contributors are tagged into this issue ticket and were reached out via email on 23 March 2023.

Contributor responses:

Contributor	response	github/email - Date recorded
@sssangha	approved	comment - 23 March 2023
@dbekaert	approved	comment - 23 March 2023
@bbuzz31	approved	comment - 23 March 2023
@ehavazli	approved	comment - 23 March 2023
@rzinke	approved	comment - 23 March 2023
@yunjunz	approved	comment - 23 March 2023
@mgovorcin	approved	comment - 23 March 2023
@cmarshak	approved	comment - 23 March 2023
@scottstanie	approved	comment - 23 March 2023
@jhkennedy	approved	comment - 23 March 2023
@alexdunnjpl	approved	comment - 23 March 2023
@Askaholic	approved	comment - 23 March 2023
@jlmaurer	approved	comment - 23 March 2023

[dbekaert]

@dbekaert approved

[jhkennedy]

@jhkennedy approved!

[scottstanie]

@scottstanie approved

[ehavazli]

@ehavazli approved

[Askaholic]

@Askaholic approved

[yunjunz]

@yunjunz approved

[cmarshak]

Interesting that conda doesn't allow for GNU share-alike licences (or as wikipedia calls it, copyleft). I don't know how open source developers sue companies because they copyrighted derivative software. Who would pay the legal fees? Who would get the money? And does NASA have any private investment where they would benefit monetarily if they privatized open source software? (rhetorical questions)

[cmarshak]

I approve (though I just was a sounding board to Sim on one PR so my opinion shouldn't matter one iota).

[sssangha]

@sssangha approved

[mgovorcin]

@mgovorcin approved

[alexdunnjpl]

Rubber-stamp from me (approved)