dolfin team mailing list archive

["Garth N. Wells" <g.n.wells@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 2006-03-31 at 13:11 -0600, Anders Logg wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 31, 2006 at 06:22:39PM +0200, Garth N. Wells wrote:
> > On Fri, 2006-03-31 at 10:17 -0600, Robert C. Kirby wrote:
> > > >
> > > > I downloaded boost, pulled the header files out and dropped them  
> > > > into my
> > > > directory and it worked fine, so it appears that no binary  
> > > > libraries are
> > > > involved. I did a grep on the header files, and the dependency on  
> > > > other
> > > > boost components is limited.
> > > >
> > > 
> > > Is there any license issue to just stuffing the requisite .h files  
> > > into DOLFIN?
> > > 
> > 
> > No. The Boost license is more liberal the GPL. You can find it here
> > http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt.
> > 
> > Garth
> 
> I'm not sure. If you look in the GPL FAQ which is available at
> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html you find the following answer
> to the question "What is the difference between "mere aggregation" and "combining two
> modules into one program?":
> 
>     Mere aggregation of two programs means putting them side by side
>     on the same CD-ROM or hard disk. We use this term in the case
>     where they are separate programs, not parts of a single
>     program. In this case, if one of the programs is covered by the
>     GPL, it has no effect on the other program.
> 
> --> Combining two modules means connecting them together so that they
> --> form a single larger program. If either part is covered by the
> --> GPL, the whole combination must also be released under the GPL--if
> --> you can't, or won't, do that, you may not combine them.
> 
>     What constitutes combining two parts into one program? This is a
>     legal question, which ultimately judges will decide. We believe
>     that a proper criterion depends both on the mechanism of
>     communication (exec, pipes, rpc, function calls within a shared
>     address space, etc.) and the semantics of the communication (what
>     kinds of information are interchanged).
> 
>     If the modules are included in the same executable file, they are
>     definitely combined in one program. If modules are designed to run
>     linked together in a shared address space, that almost surely
>     means combining them into one program.
> 
>     By contrast, pipes, sockets and command-line arguments are
>     communication mechanisms normally used between two separate
>     programs. So when they are used for communication, the modules
>     normally are separate programs. But if the semantics of the
>     communication are intimate enough, exchanging complex internal
>     data structures, that too could be a basis to consider the two
>     parts as combined into a larger program. 
> 
> You could interpret this as if we distribute ublas as part of DOLFIN,
> then ublas must be licensed under the GPL, which we can't do?
> 
> On the other hand, the boost license is listed as compatible with the
> GPL so I guess it should be ok:
> 
>     http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html
> 
> /Anders
> 

Looks ok to me since it's GPL-compatible. From
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLCompatibleLicenses

    "We classify a license according to certain key questions:

        * Whether it qualifies as a free software license.
        * Whether it is a copyleft license.
-->     * Whether it is compatible with the GNU GPL. (This means 
          you can combine a module which was released under that 
          license with a GPL-covered module to make one larger program.)
        * Whether it causes any particular practical problems."


Garth

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