fenics team mailing list archive

[Harish Narayanan <harish.mlists@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 2/17/11 11:56 AM, Garth N. Wells wrote:
> 
> 
> On 17/02/11 10:27, Harish Narayanan wrote:
>> Dear FEniCS enthusiasts,
>>
>> I am going to reiterate a concern that I tried to bring up earlier
>> regarding the copyright consent forms. Please chime in with your views.
>>
>> I understand the rationale behind using LGPL for core FEniCS components
>> (e.g. DOLFIN and FFC). It makes sense to me that these projects could
>> form a part of future (potentially proprietary) applications. The
>> developers of such applications clearly have to bring in a lot of
>> domain-specific knowledge. I can see why they might want to keep such
>> knowledge proprietary, and I can see how moving to LGPL brings them into
>> the community at least as users of FEniCS.
>>
>> But the same logic doesn't hold (in my mind) for FEniCS Apps. Some of
>> these function reasonably well and are already capable of solving select
>> domain-specific problems. Aren't they, in a sense, closer to complete,
>> immediately useful applications? Given this, does it make sense that
>> they too should be released under LGPL? What is then to prevent someone
>> from, say, slapping a GUI on a well-functioning solver and selling it as
>> a tool?
>>
> 
> I'm not sure what you're advocating. That FEniCS Apps should be GPL?

Yes, or at least be left to the developer's choice. I am not keen on
past contributions to FEniCS Apps under GPL now suddenly being
transferred to LGPL.

Harish