[Freegis-list] ERMapper ECW License problematic

[Jan-Oliver Wagner]

Hello,

today I had the time to study the ECW License Agreements.

Apparently the "ECW JPEG 2000 SDK Public Use Licene Agreement"
is supposed to allow use within a Free Software.
Though it says it allows use within a GPL-style license there is IMHO
a clear contradiction of terms.

"""
...
This license applies to any use of the Software Product solely intended to develop or be
distributed with products that are licensed under a license similar to a General Public
License ("GPL") and at no charge to the public. This license covers modification and
distribution of the Software, use of third-party application programs based on the
Software, and development of free software that uses the Software.
...
"""

"at no charge to the public" is contradictory with the terms of GPL/LGPL
which allows to charge whatever you like as long as you also say that it
is Free Software and the source code is available for the cost of reproduction
and postage.
Though it may not appear so, it is a fundamental diferences.

Especially for commercial projects where you deliver a Free Software
to a customer, the ECW SDK is a no-go since it is not compatible with
the e.g. LGPL.

At least this is my interpretation.
Any other opinions?
Additional comments?

Note, that I found several other stangeness in this license, but one
was already enough to render it useless form the Commercial Free Software
perspective.

Note further that there was some discussion last year [1] on ECW but primarily
about the question why it is not Free Software itself.

Best

	Jan

[1] http://intevation.de/pipermail/freegis-list/2005-January/002091.html

-- 
Jan-Oliver Wagner: www.intevation.de/~jan  | GISpatcher: www.gispatcher.de
Kolab Konsortium : www.kolab-konsortium.de | Thuban    : thuban.intevation.org
Intevation GmbH  : www.intevation.de       | Kolab     : www.kolab.org
FreeGIS          : www.freegis.org         | GAV       : www.grass-verein.de