[GRASSLIST:10801] Re: [GRASS5] FWD: [OSGeo-Discuss] Incubation Committee / Contributor Agreements]

[Laurent C.]

2006/3/8, Moritz Lennert <mlennert at club.worldonline.be>:
>
> Laurent C. wrote:
> > 2006/3/8, Glynn Clements <glynn at gclements.plus.com
> > <mailto:glynn at gclements.plus.com>>:
> >
> >
> >     As I see it, the main risk of allowing proprietary derivatives is a
> >     risk of "siphoning off" developers and beta testers (aka "users")
> from
> >     the free version towards a "mostly, but not quite" free version.
> >
> >     IMHO, the biggest risk is with versions which are "free-enough for
> >     most people", e.g. "free for non-commercial use". OpenDWG is
> probably
> >     a good example; it isn't "Free Software", but it's close enough to
> >     significantly reduce the chances of a genuinely-free alternative
> being
> >     developed.
> >
> >
> >
> > Hello list, hello Glynn,
> >
> > I don't think OpenDWG is a good example because there is no free
> > alternative and AFAIK Open Desing Alliance hasn't fork any free
> > software, and there is no community around this project.
>
> That's exactly the point: since there is something "free-enough for most
> people" as Glynn puts it, there is not enough incentive for the creation
> of a really free version.
>
> Using the GPL should keep people from using the existing code to create
> such "free-enough for most people".
>
> Moritz
>

I understand that, but I don't think it apply to GRASS.
I mean "no comunity around ODA". GRASS community is active. ODA is some
commercial consortium.
I think that GRASS will be in the situation of "OpenDWG competitor" if ESRI
release Arcinfo under a "free-enough for most
people" licence. Not if some GRASS parts (libraries for example) are
released under a BSD-like licence.

Laurent
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