[GRASS5] New info on openDWG

Jan-Oliver Wagner jan at intevation.de
Fri Aug 27 04:36:07 EDT 2004


Hi,

talking about this 'only for non-commercial use' stuff,
please all be aware, that this definition is extremely
fuzzy and poses high risk for anyone who uses software with
this limitation!

Especially universities are not anymore pure non-commercial.
They have a lot 3rd-party projects and some are even
running on their own taking money from the students. I regard
that commercial for instance.

A long list could be appended here on similar examples.

The conclusion must be never to use software with the limitation
'not for commercial use' as you always take the risk of legal
trouble that could cost you a lot of money.

BTW, the same applies, especially in GIS, for phrase like
'not for military use'. There is also no definition for this!

Best

	Jan

On Fri, Aug 27, 2004 at 09:59:03AM +0200, Moritz Lennert wrote:
> The GPL in no way prohibits commercial distribution of software (look at
> all the GNU/Linux Distributions that sell GPL'd software). Free in the
> sense of free software (and in the sense of the GPL), does not mean
> non-commercial, it means the freedom to access, modify and redistribute
> modified version of the source code. But you have every right to sell
> GPL'd software, including.
> 
> So some people might want to sell GRASS, but if there is a v.in.dwg this
> would not be legal with an associative membership of the Open Design
> Alliance. Their system is incompatible with the GPL since it takes away
> the freedom to do as they wish with the software. This is why including it
> in the distribution would limit GRASS in a way deemed inacceptable for
> many developers.

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

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




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