fenics team mailing list archive

[Harish Narayanan <harish.mlists@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 2/17/11 12:11 PM, Garth N. Wells wrote:
> 
> 
> On 17/02/11 11:08, Harish Narayanan wrote:
>> 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.
>>
> 
> I'm perfectly happy with FEniCS Apps developers choosing for themselves
> between GPL and LGPL. I thought that this was the present situation?

That is not what the text of the copyright consent form suggests. I
would like if what you said was made more explicit.

Link for easy access:
http://www.fenicsproject.org/pub/copyright/forms/letter-author.pdf

Harish