[jan@intevation.de: Re: [Freegis-list] open source SEG-Y viewer wanted]

[Jan-Oliver Wagner]

Hi John,

thank you for your quick answer.
Yes, I am very strict on some terms :-)
I will try to answer all of your points as
precise as possible.
Independent of the license discussion I really
appreciate your efford and the powerful software you
are making available to many people.

On Thu, Jan 25, 2001 at 10:29:36AM -0700, John Stockwell wrote:
> First. To my knowledge there is no all inclusive legal definition of what 
> constitutes "Free Software".  You may be referring to the "copyleft" policy
> of the GNU project, but the rest of the world is not them.  Indeed, we may
> be violating *your* definition of Free Software, but we stand by our right
> to call our materials "Free".

you are correct that "Free Software" is not a trademark.
Anyone can define the with his own ideas.
However, I was referring to the world-wide most accepted definition
which is supported by the FSF and OSI.

"copyleft" is one license among many being compliant to
the definition of "Free Software".

> Second. As to why we have this statement, this reason is simple: the disparity 
> in price between our Free software and the price of commercial packages. 

btw: in my definition free software *is* commercial. I distinguish free and
proprietary software :-)

> Commercial seismic packages cost 10's of thousands to 100's of thousands of dollars, 
> so there is a strong temptation by third party individuals to simply 
> repackage SU, doing no original work of their own, for the purpose of selling the
> package at a price beyon mere reproduction costs.

I perfectly understand this! That's why I prefer GPL or LGPL over MIT or
BSD style licences.

> Indeed, we had one incident a couple of years ago in which a couple of individuals
> attempted to sell SU, as is, to the University of Bengal for $100,000. They were not
> successful because one of the students had the presence of mind to check the net
> and contact me.  The individual thanked my for both providing SU as Free Software,
> and for having an explicit statement in the License making it illegal to repackage
> and sell the code, as is.

It is correct that your statement prevented an abuse of your software.
GPL would have done the same job (OK, if it is brought to
the attantion of the university of Bengal that the product offered for
$100.000 is freely available as well and they still pay - who cares? :-)

> Third. The purpose of SU is to elevate the basic level of seismic utilities that
> are available to the world community.  Indeed, we *encourage* users to take parts
> of the SU source code and use it for the development of their own applications, 
> whether these be commercial, or non-commercial. Our project is not one which 
> exists to make money for organizations that exist merely to sell CD's containing 
> other people's software, but who do not do original work of their own.

if you mean commercial=proprietary then GPL would not be a good idea for you.
Perhaps the LGPL would make it, but I think you would like to offer
even just portions of code to be incorporated in proprietary products, right?
That is not possible with the LGPL.
So you have choosen a license that is adequate for your needs.

> Fourth. The package is updated continuously, so by the time a CD would be obtained
> by a user, that version would be out of date. So, the distribution by CD option
> is less attractive.

hm, that actually makes your license statement obsolete.

> Fifth.  We actively encourage users to submit their own improvements to the package.
> Users do this without compensation, safe in the knowledge that their work is not being
> exploited by a third party "distributors" to make money that the authors of the
> code will never see.

but it is exploited, because a contributors algorithm goes into a proprietary
product and is improved there. The original author will never hear about bug
fixes of his code from the proprietary people which is quite
unsatisfactory to my mind and one of the reasons why the GPL and LGPL have
been developed.

> I would furthemore point out that your policy regarding your definition of
> "Free Software" is deficient, in that it does not recognize the right of authors
> of Free Software to put their own restrictions and conditions on their packages,

really, I did not get this one. Any author can put any license terms on his
software and absolutely independent of what the license text says, call the stuff
Free Software. Even Bill Gates can call W2000 Free Software. We live in a free world.
(its because Free Software is not a registered trademark)

> nor does it encourage users of Free Software to familiarize themselves with the
> licenses that free software may be downloading from the net.

a good point. Many software homepages have hidden the license text quite good.
with some others you have the mandatory click "I agree" before downloading/running.
INMHO, the license should be reachable via a visible link (homepage) or menu item (software)
so that anyone can easily find the license when looking for it.
I recommend to not introduce mandatory stuff (no one will read it in that moment
anyway). At least in Germany the laws says that you must familiarise yourself
with the terms of usage when you get a product (You are not possible to say
'I didn't know' when you have violated an easily accessible license aagreement).

wow, this was all a long discussion of Free Software again on this list :-)

Jan

-- 
Jan-Oliver Wagner               http://intevation.de/~jan/

Intevation GmbH	              	     http://intevation.de/
FreeGIS	                               http://freegis.org/