Good news! I have contacted Mr. Maciej Kaczkowski, the author of TMapViewer which was the base for LazMapViewer, and he kindly agreed to change the license to any open source variant we like. I suggest we stick with the suggested
https://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/FPC_modified_LGPL which is already used for RTL and LCL since it is most compatible with Lazarus and still allows commercial use. Although Maciej was the original author, to change the license we need all contributors of LazMapViewer to agree on this, so we need to find out the list of them. Looking at SVN history I can only see wp's contributions, but looking at
https://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/topic,12674.0.htm l suspect that there are other contributors. Anyone who can bring light on this please step forward.
Here are our mails that Maciej kindly allowed me to post in the forum (I have changed them only by making our e-mail addresses unreadable):
2020-03-25 18:30 GMT+01:00, Maciej Kaczkowski <***@keit.co>:
> Hi,
>
> Yes, you can publish.
>
> Best regards
> Maciej Kaczkowski
>
> W dniu 24.03.2020 o 17:34, Zeljko Avramovic pisze:
>> Hello Mr. Kaczkowski,
>>
>> That is very nice of you and I thank you very much in the name of the
>> community. May I have your permission to publish our mail messages in
>> Lazarus forum to inform the community of the good news?
>>
>>
>> Regards,
>> Zeljko Avramovic
>>
>> 2020-03-24 17:22 GMT+01:00, Maciej Kaczkowski <***@keit.co>:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I've only created the basis for this project. I'm no longer involved in
>>> it. If you need to connect to another project you can choose any Open
>>> Source license that will satisfy the community. Many changes have been
>>> made outside of me, if there is a will to change the license to another
>>> one, I accept it.
>>>
>>> Best regards
>>> Maciej Kaczkowski
>>>
>>>
>>> W dniu 23.03.2020 o 22:14, ***@keit.co pisze:
>>>> Nadawca: Zeljko Avramovic <***@gmail.com>
>>>> Temat: TMapViewer license
>>>>
>>>> Treść wiadomości:
>>>> Hello Mr. Kaczkowski,
>>>>
>>>> Some people from Lazarus community would would like to make extended
>>>> version of your TMapViewer downloadable from Lazarus via OPM (Online
>>>> Package Manager), and it would be really very nice if it could have the
>>>> same LGPL with linking exception license as RTL, LCL and many other
>>>> parts
>>>> of FreePascal and Lazarus already have. Whatever you decide, I want to
>>>> thank you for sharing your nice work with the community and wish you
>>>> the
>>>> best.
>>>>
>>>> Here is extended version of your component:
>>>> https://sourceforge.net/p/lazarus-ccr/svn/HEAD/tree/components/lazmapviewer/
>>>>
>>>> and here is modified LGPL license that we hope you can accept:
>>>> https://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/FPC_modified_LGPL
>>>> https://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/licensing
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>> Zeljko Avramovic (user avra in Lazarus forum)