<HTML><BODY DEFANGED_STYLE="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; ">The issue here is not helping a non-GPL project. It is helping GRASS and enhancing open source software.<DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><DIV>The place where I've run into problems most recently is working to develop an interface to make agent based modeling tools available to GRASS and GIS (in GRASS) available to open source agent based modeling platforms. A major system, with which we are working is released under BSD. A very useful interface we'd like to use is (SWIG) released under MIT. Because of the work the ABM folks do and clients they have, they feel that they cannot make their software GPL--although it is open-source licensed. They feel strongly about being open source and about being ethical with regards to licenses--both commendable things. The licensing incompatibility is making it difficult to find a way to make GRASS and Java ABM platforms interact in a useful way. Not impossible, I hope, but it has added a significant layer of complication and considerably restricted the ways in which we can develop this interaction.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I'm not saying that we should make GRASS non-GPL, but hoping that we can find productive avenues to work with other open-source platforms that are not GPL (expanding the user, developer, and support base as well as making GRASS better).</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Michael</DIV><DIV><BR><DIV><DIV>On Mar 14, 2006, at 10:27 AM, <A href="mailto:grass5-request@grass.itc.it">grass5-request@grass.itc.it</A> wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><P DEFANGED_STYLE="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><BR></P> <P DEFANGED_STYLE="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><BR></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><BR></P> <P DEFANGED_STYLE="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" DEFANGED_STYLE="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Markus Neteler wrote:</FONT></P> <P DEFANGED_STYLE="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><BR></P> <BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><P DEFANGED_STYLE="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" DEFANGED_STYLE="font: 12.0px Helvetica">It was an example for existing problems. I have spoken quite a few times to</FONT></P> <P DEFANGED_STYLE="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" DEFANGED_STYLE="font: 12.0px Helvetica">people who were interested to connect to GRASS, to invest even money into</FONT></P> <P DEFANGED_STYLE="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" DEFANGED_STYLE="font: 12.0px Helvetica">further GRASS development, but then went away since this didn't want to</FONT></P> <P DEFANGED_STYLE="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" DEFANGED_STYLE="font: 12.0px Helvetica">or could not (because they were not owner) publish their piece of software</FONT></P> <P DEFANGED_STYLE="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" DEFANGED_STYLE="font: 12.0px Helvetica">under GPL.</FONT></P> </BLOCKQUOTE><P DEFANGED_STYLE="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><BR></P> <P DEFANGED_STYLE="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">If they can't release the combined work under the GPL, that means that</FONT></P> <P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">some other code which they wish to use is neither GPL/LGPL nor</FONT></P> <P DEFANGED_STYLE="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" DEFANGED_STYLE="font: 12.0px Helvetica">BSD/MIT, but under some licence which requires different restrictions</FONT></P> <P DEFANGED_STYLE="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" DEFANGED_STYLE="font: 12.0px Helvetica">on redistribution (e.g. non-commercial use only).</FONT></P> <P DEFANGED_STYLE="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><BR></P> <P DEFANGED_STYLE="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" DEFANGED_STYLE="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Personally, I don't see any reason to assist such projects.</FONT></P> <P DEFANGED_STYLE="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><BR></P> <P DEFANGED_STYLE="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" DEFANGED_STYLE="font: 12.0px Helvetica">--<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></FONT></P> <P DEFANGED_STYLE="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Glynn Clements <<A href="mailto:glynn@gclements.plus.com">glynn@gclements.plus.com</A>></FONT></P> <P DEFANGED_STYLE="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><BR></P> <P DEFANGED_STYLE="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><BR></P> </BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>