Re: proposed FAQ entries about licensing

[Jaroslav Hajek]

On Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 10:57 AM, Svante Signell
<address@hidden> wrote:
> On Tue, 2009-04-07 at 15:45 -0400, John W. Eaton wrote:
>> On  7-Apr-2009, Svante Signell wrote:
>>
>> | Sorry for not continuing this thread earlier, but I have been too busy
>> | recently (applying for funding) and then the home computer crashed...
>> |
>> | Summarizing up the comments the conclusions are: (correct me if I'm
>> | wrong)
>> |
>> | - No p-file support in Octave (not of much use anyway)
>> | - Using the .mex interface is OK, for commercial use for some of the .m
>> | file functions if needed. Works both in Matlab and Octave.
>> | - Using the .oct file interface in Octave is not OK due to the
>> | derivative work clause.
>> |
>> | Some comments:
>> | - Distribution of commercial and free .m-files does not make sense,
>> | since the commercially licensed files are still readable in source code
>>
>> Please don't confuse commercial and proprietary.  The GPL allows
>> commercial uses.  What it does not allow is making proprietary
>> derivative works.
>
> OK, I should have written proprietary instead of commercial.
>
>> | - We considered to release the noncommercial code of our application
>> | (toolbox) under a free license, e.g. GPL v3, but according to your
>> | answers the interest of the free part, it can be considered as a model a
>> | library, would be low, at least from you developers? If this advice is
>> | taken seriously by us, why make any .m-file code free?? It does not
>> | matter in Matlab and Octave developers don't want it?
>>
>> I'm having trouble deciphering the above.  What do you mean by "It
>> does not matter in Matlab and Octave developers don't want it?"?   I'm
>> certainly interested in seeing more free software become available.
>
> I'll try to clarify: If we develop entirely for use in Matlab and not in
> Octave it doesn't matter much if the library code is GPLed or not. We
> would probably be fully proprietary then, an no .m files or .mex files
> would be free.

That choice is up to you, of course.

> This is not our wish however, and we would like to make the
> toolbox run in both Matlab and Octave as well as in *nix and PC
> environments.

If you want to take advantage of any GPL-covered software, including
Octave, you need to honor the GPL (of course this means legally comply
with its terms, but I also think that you shouldn't use it if you
disagree with it's spirit). GPL protects free software from being
"proprietarized" in the precise sense you (maybe) look for.
You can, of course, use any other free software license for your code,
that doesn't impose GPL's strict copyleft requirements, but then you
can't make your code dependent on Octave, for instance, by using the
C++ interface, or by distributing binaries linked against Octave.

regards

-- 
RNDr. Jaroslav Hajek
computing expert & GNU Octave developer
Aeronautical Research and Test Institute (VZLU)
Prague, Czech Republic
url: www.highegg.matfyz.cz