[Bino-list] Bino licencing problems...

[Vittorio Giovara]

Hello Martin and all,
I wanted to start a difficult discussion as it's a particularly "hot" thread, especially for an opensource project.
I feel that using GPLv3 is not right for Bino and I'm going to explain why.

GPLv3 is a major step forward from GPLv2 and it takes care of a lot intellectual property loopholes that sneaked in previous versions. However one of the "new entries" is a nasty requirement over patent licenses: in layman's term, if you own a patent and implement the feature under a gplv3 license, you automatically give a *free*, *perpetual* license to *everyone* and every derivative work.

Let me make the devil's attorney and state that this does not bode well for a "new" (or rather "reborn") research field such as stereoscopy. In general it is very likely that newer technologies like depthmasks, 2D+delta, MVC and so on are being covered by one or more patents.

What does that mean for Bino while using a GPLv3 license?
Well, the owners of such patents will never agree to submit any of their code under such licensing terms; moreover if any contributor implements anything that might be in a patent, he or she automatically grant a license for something that they doesn't posses. In other words,  this makes them and Bino infringe that patent.

However there are more liberal licenses, such as the BSD or MIT license, that basically state "let us code together and not deal with the rest": if Bino were to switch licenses, I believe that we could continue working and using Bino like now, but with the possibility of having more and more features added without risking of violating anything. Besides I think it could attract new contributions from the industry which is usually scared away by such strict licenses.

Is there a strong reason for licensing Bino as GPLv3? Would you consider changing licenses for Bino?
Martin, I would really like to know what do you think of this possibility and if the group shares any position on this idea.

Best,
Vittorio