fenics team mailing list archive

[Anders Logg <logg@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 11:18:26AM +0000, Garth N. Wells wrote:
>
>
> 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.

FEniCS Apps is still a part of FEniCS so it's reasonable to include it
on the form. And it would have been good to bring this up before we
started sending out and collecting the forms.

There are a number of possibilities:

1. Allow FEniCS Apps to select either GPL or LGPL. In that case we can
construct an optional form for Harish.

2. Require that FEniCS Apps use LGPL as the rest of FEniCS. In that
case developers that object to the LGPL can take their projects
elsewhere (or rather keep them on Launchpad). The only difference
would be that they are not promoted as a FEniCS App from the FEniCS
web page.

3. Discontinue FEniCS Apps and don't require anything for the projects
currently part of FEniCS Apps. We could still have a page on
fenicsproject.org which linked to projects based on FEniCS. Since we
don't provide any infrastructure for the Apps (Launchpad does), the
difference would be small.

--
Anders