> What is menaningful is to learn from the GRASS NR
> case, something for our understanding of Free Software
> in general: that the idealistic idea of Bazzar is
> simply wrong in many cases.
> Open Source advocates usually says that the solution
> to a problem in the "Open Source model" would be the
> best possible solution.
..
> Probably my mistake is to think that this solution is
> necessarily related to the "freedom" of software.
The NR example has little to do with "freedom" software -- regardless of
GRASS being a GPL project or proprietary one, we must still observe
copyright law and remove any possible infringements.
A question might be: would it be more efficient to work under a "bandit"
license and ignore copyright law? Yes, until the day when we all get
arrested, at which point productivity declines.
But maybe if we were proprietary we could buy our way out of the problem
by licensing the NR code, which could be considered "more efficient",
depending on the licensing costs vs. the cost of developer time. (but as
apparently we already had special permission to use the NR code, this is
somewhat moot for the NR example)
The problem is that we couldn't then use other people's GPL code, as
we wouldn't be distributing the end result under the GPL.
Also, what does the "use within GRASS only" restriction on the NR code
actually mean for a GPL'd project? If someone takes the GRASS code and
starts modifying it, at what point does their version cease to be
"GRASS"?
The problem is that we couldn't then use other
people's GPL code, as
we wouldn't be distributing the end result under the
GPL.
Also, what does the "use within GRASS only"
restriction on the NR code
actually mean for a GPL'd project? If someone takes
the GRASS code and
starts modifying it, at what point does their
version cease to be
"GRASS"?
I may be mistaken, but you would also have lost the
right to use the GPL at all if the NR code remained in
GRASS.
Also, what does the "use within GRASS only" restriction on the NR code
actually mean for a GPL'd project? If someone takes the GRASS code and
starts modifying it, at what point does their version cease to be
"GRASS"?
presumably that permission was granted before GRASS went GPL and was
still (for the most part) a single entity headed by CERL.
> The problem is that we couldn't then use other
> people's GPL code, as
> we wouldn't be distributing the end result under the
> GPL.
>
> Also, what does the "use within GRASS only"
> restriction on the NR code
> actually mean for a GPL'd project? If someone takes
> the GRASS code and
> starts modifying it, at what point does their
> version cease to be
> "GRASS"?
I may be mistaken, but you would also have lost the
right to use the GPL at all if the NR code remained in
GRASS.
Is that true?
We could release our own code (and that inherited from CERL) under the
GPL, but the licence for GRASS as a whole would be "GPL, except for
the FFT code". Consequently, we would have needed specific permission
to use any third-party code in GRASS; code which is only licensed
under the GPL can't be used in a project whose licence is "GPL, except
for ...".
That would preclude the use of e.g. the Readline library.
Before Qt was available under the GPL, it was quite common for
Qt-based code to use a licence which allowed the code to be used under
the terms of the GPL, and which also specifically permitted the
distribution of binaries which were linked against Qt (which wouldn't
have been legal had the code only been licensed under the GPL).
However, that meant that all code had to be written anew, or be taken
from projects which also used the "GPL+Qt" license; using plain GPL
code wouldn't have been legal.
Also, what does the "use within GRASS only" restriction on the NR code
actually mean for a GPL'd project? If someone takes the GRASS code and
starts modifying it, at what point does their version cease to be
"GRASS"?
presumably that permission was granted before GRASS went GPL
Yes, as far as I remember it was granted in 1988. So 11 years earlier.
markus
and was still (for the most part) a single entity headed by CERL.