fenics team mailing list archive

[Harish Narayanan <harish.mlists@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 9/7/10 12:27 PM, Anders Logg wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 07, 2010 at 08:26:03AM +0530, Harish Narayanan wrote:
>> On 9/6/10 7:13 PM, Anders Logg wrote:
>>> eA bunch of different licenses are used for various FEniCS components,
>>> mostly different versions of GPL and LGPL.
>>>
>>> I would be practical to clean up among the licenses and maybe even use
>>> the same license for all components. At least, we should settle on
>>> either GPL or LGPL v3 or any later version for all components. One
>>> immediate benefit is that a common license would simplify packaging
>>> for Debian/Ubuntu since that requires listing all licenses used and
>>> that involves some work (even for DOLFIN alone!).
>>>
>>> One implication is the need for changing the DOLFIN license which is
>>> now LGPL v2.1.
>>>
>>> An important point to consider is the potential implication of the GPL
>>> license used in FFC and UFL, which might force GPL on DOLFIN.
>>>
>>> I have added a blueprint:
>>>
>>> https://blueprints.launchpad.net/fenics/+spec/license
>>>
>>> Please comment here and on the blueprint whiteboard.
>>
>> Are there any plans for a proprietary product built atop the FEniCS
>> components? (Imagine a fancy GUI frontend or something.) Or posed in
>> another way, how would the community feel if something like this was
>> built on FEniCS, and sold by someone else (or one of their own) for
>> profit? (And not have any of their cool extensions contributed back.)
> 
> There are no concrete plans that I know of, but I have had many
> questions about the choice of license and possibilities for making
> proprietary products on top of FEniCS.

I guess the question is how one feels about this, as therein lies the
difference between LGPL and GPL. And since there are many votes for
LGPL---and it will likely win this little vote---I will voice my support
for GPL. As in, if in the future there exists some cool frontend or
something for FEniCS, I would like such a tool (or its underlying
enhancements) to be freely available for teaching students and such.

> GPL tends to be my default choice of license, but there are advantages
> to LPGL, one of them being that it can be converted to GPL at will (by
> anyone). ;-)

But the code just before this change can (and will) be forked by someone
looking to make a buck, and bundle their proprietary app on top.

Harish