[Go-essp-tech] Gateway open source license

[Nathan Wilhelmi]

Hi Colleagues,

Back in April we announced the 1.3-M4 release of the gateway, including 
mention that the Apache 2.0 license had been applied to the codebase. 
Not everyone noticed that, so we summarized that at the GO-ESSP event 
last week and wanted to note it here as well.

It was a surprising amount of work to get this done. We considered 
various open source models and licenses, working with our legal counsel 
throughout the process. This resulted in having to review 130+ third 
party code licenses for distribution/usage rights and license 
compatibility. We had to replace a few components along the way. At this 
point, we feel confident that due diligence has been done.

As many of you are probably aware research institutions are coming under 
increased scrutiny for export control compliance. NCAR is no exception, 
during this process we also had to go through an export control review 
as the code contained encryption libraries.

Much has been drawn from the Apache Foundation, including the 
development of a simplified Contributor License Agreement (CLA). There 
have been a few questions about this, so I wanted to explain a bit. It 
basically protects and benefits all parties as well as the community 
code. It ensures that contributions from multiple organizations can be 
modified as needed and distributed to the community. It also removes the 
need for a contributor to assign copyright to another organization. 
Instead, the contributor simply provides permission to include their 
contribution while retaining copyright _and_ the right to use the 
contribution for their own purposes freely. Again, thanks to Apache for 
this nice instrument.

If you have any questions or comments, please let us know.

Thanks!
-Nate