In May 2018, The HDF Group announced a new support strategy for the HDF5 libraries that are included in netCDF4. Because HDF5 libraries are needed by the netCDF4 libraries to create fully-featured netCDF files, the changes to The HDF group's support strategy have raised questions about netCDF's future path in the netCDF community.
Unidata and the netCDF team have been in close contact with The HDF Group since their announcement, and we reiterate our commitment to providing netCDF libraries that do not require any paid software licenses in order to create or read files that conform to the netCDF standard. Read on for details.
As we approach the first public beta of version 5.0 of the THREDDS Data Server (TDS), we have decided to revisit our software license. Currently, both NetCDF-Java and the TDS are released under the same license that the netCDF C library uses, which is a license that was 'home grown' at UCAR. It's usually called an 'MIT-style license,' though it is perhaps more similar to the BSD-3 Clause license. Rather than continue to use the 'home grown' license, we will be moving to a standard, off-the-shelf BSD-3 license, bringing the TDS and NetCDF-Java packages more in line with standard practice within the Open Source community.
Unidata hosts a variety of Open Source software projects on GitHub. We use the Open Source model because we believe strongly that broad participation in all aspects of Unidata's work is essential to achieving the Unidata community's goals. Developing software that focuses on community needs is one of our main objectives, and participation by community members in all aspects of the development process — from coding to testing, documenting, and commenting — is incredibly valuable.
As community participation in Unidata's Open Source efforts grows, we are facing increasingly complex situations surrounding contributions made to Unidata-hosted projects. As a result, we have decided to begin requiring that community members who wish to contribute code to Unidata projects on GitHub agree to the Unidata Contributor License Agreement (CLA).
Unidata hosts a variety of Open Source software projects on GitHub. We use the Open Source model because we believe strongly that broad participation in all aspects of Unidata's work is essential to achieving the Unidata community's goals. Developing software that focuses on community needs is one of our main objectives, and participation by community members in all aspects of the development process — from coding to testing, documenting, and commenting — is incredibly valuable.
As community participation in Unidata's Open Source efforts grows, we are facing increasingly complex situations surrounding contributions made to Unidata-hosted projects. As a result, we have decided to begin requiring that community members who wish to contribute code to Unidata projects on GitHub agree to the Unidata Contributor License Agreement (CLA).
