fenics team mailing list archive

[Johan Hake <johan.hake@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Tuesday September 7 2010 01:12:02 Harish Narayanan wrote:
> 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.

The reason I lean towards LGPL is that we probably gets more users

Johan

> > 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
> 
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