fenics team mailing list archive

["Garth N. Wells" <gnw20@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 17/02/11 11:16, Harish Narayanan wrote:
> 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
> 

OK.

Since we don't distribute FEniCS Apps, I don't see why they've been
included on the consent form.

Garth

> Harish