[vtk-developers] Re: Final decision on license? [GL2PS]

[Christophe Geuzaine]

Prabhu Ramachandran wrote:
> Dear Christophe,
> 
> You must have seen William Hoffman's post on the inclusion of GL2PS
> into VTK.
> 
> http://public.kitware.com/pipermail/vtk-developers/2003-October/002594.html
> 
> I have not heard from you since.  I'd just like to know if this is
> unacceptable for you and if your decision to continue with the LGPL or
> a modified LGPL is final (for now atleast) or if you have answers to
> William's objections.

I only have one objection to the BSD license (but a big one...): you can
modify the code, incorporate it into a proprietary product, and the
community never benefits from your changes. I personally find this
unacceptable...

Still, I agree with Bill's point that adding an exception to the
LGPL is not a perfect solution, due to the complexity of the LGPL.

Here is what I propose to solve the problem. I am willing to release
GL2PS under a dual license: either the original LGPL, or a license (used
in early gnuplot versions) allowing you to do whatever you want with
original GL2PS releases (incorporate them into proprietary code,
whatever), but not redistribute modified versions (except under the form
of patches to the released version).

Here is a draft of what it could look like:

/*
 * GL2PS, an OpenGL to PostScript Printing Library
 * Copyright (C) 1999-2003 Christophe Geuzaine <geuz at geuz.org>
 *
 * This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
 * modify it under the terms of either:
 *
 * a) the GNU Library General Public License as published by the Free
 * Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your
 * option) any later version, or
 *
 * b) the GL2PS License as published by Christophe Geuzaine, either
 * version 1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
 *
 * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
 * WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See either
 * the GNU Library General Public License or the GL2PS License for more
 * details.
 *
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU Library General Public
 * License along with this library in the file named "COPYING.LGPL";
 * if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave,
 * Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
 *
 * You should have received a copy of the GL2PS License with this
 * library in the file named "COPYING.GL2PS"; if not, I will be glad
 * to provide one.
 *
 */

::::::::::::::
COPYING.GL2PS
::::::::::::::
                           GL2PS LICENSE
                      Version 1, October 2003

              Copyright (C) 2003, Christophe Geuzaine

Permission to use, copy, and distribute this software and its
documentation for any purpose with or without fee is hereby granted,
provided that the copyright notice appear in all copies and that both
that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting
documentation.

Permission to modify the software is granted, but not the right to
distribute the modified code.  Modifications are to be distributed as
patches to released version.

This software is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty.


Any comments?

Cheers,

Christophe

-- 
Christophe A. Geuzaine
Applied and Computational Mathematics, Caltech
geuzaine at acm.caltech.edu - http://geuz.org