[Freegis-list] Re: [Fwd: iGMT licensing]

[Thorsten Becker]

On Tue, 6 Feb 2001, Bernhard Reiter wrote:

> On Tue, Feb 06, 2001 at 02:02:48PM -0500, Thorsten Becker wrote:

> > > > 	If you are concerned by our deviation from the GPL, I suppose you
> > > > will have to take iGMT off your next release of the free GIS disc. 
> > > 
> > > We will use the latest version which was Free Software, 
> > > if we have to other choice. :(
> > > Do you know which was the last one you have published under GPL?
> 
> > 1.1.
> 
> This is not true as I do have a tarball for 1.2, which we used for
> the FreeGIS CD rpms, which only has the GPL license included.

well, i was not including some of the preliminary releases of pre 1.2.
we changed the licensing some time in between, i can't recall when. 

> 
> > > Coming to think of it there might be a problem with the restricted
> > > license for you, too:
> > > iGMT is completly dependant on GMT and GMT is released under GPL. 
> > > Based on the legal interpretation on what a derived work is,
> > > iGMT might be a derived work and therefore you would not be able to
> > > legally use iGMT with GMT under a non GPL-compatible license.
> > > 
> > 
> > i interpret 'derived' as including gmt source or something like that which
> > we don't. 
> 
> I wish it would be as simple as this, participating in several
> discussions on gnu.misc.discuss I know that it is complicated.
> 
> iGMT is not useful without GMT and therefore creates a combined
> product with it, I think that US legal interpretations consider the
> combination as a product a derived work.
> 
> > i therefore consider it appropriate that igmt has it's own license. 
> 
> Maybe we have to ask for legal advice here.
> 	Bernhard

well, if you convince me that we have to use th gmt licence, we use the
gmt license. 

> 
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  Thorsten W. Becker_________________becker at geophysics.harvard.edu 
  Earth and Planetary Sciences
  Harvard University                         phone: 1.617.495.8986
  20 Oxford Street                             fax: 1.617.495.8839
  Cambridge MA 02138, USA       www.seismology.harvard.edu/~becker