License needed: Marcus Please start the process!

[David Mandel]

On Thu, 14 Oct 1999, Lori Kingery wrote:

> > David Hine <fresherb at nrg.com.au>
> > 4./ While we wait for alternative assertions of ownership of GRASS (CERL?)
> 
> USACERL (now ERDC-Champaign) is part of the U.S. Federal Gov't
> (Department of Defense, Army Corps of Engineers).  I may be
> mistaken here, but my understanding is that stuff we write,
> unless it is for a specific other organization (maybe not even
> then) is freely available or in the public domain.
> 
> This (or some misconception about it) may be why there was no
> license attached to GRASS while it was under our purview.
> But either way, it seems unlikely that anyone here would contest
> the license, unless it is somehow illegal to license a gov't
> product.
> 

I really don't know what I'm talking about, but I spent many years
working on federal grants at Oregon State University followed by 
more years working as a contractor for the US Bureau of Land Management.

I would have liked to have put my work under GPL and I know many
government programmers do put their work under GPL.  However, I
don't believe correct.  As I understand the rules, government programmers
(including contractors) can not restrict their work in any way.  Thus, I
always felt, that a Berkley style license is acceptable, but a GPL is not.

On the other hand, people can do most anything with work under a Berkley
license once it leaves the government.  (Of course, they have to list
the original authors and disclaim libility for them.)  Many companies 
take tax payer developed software and distribute it with proprietary
licenses.  Thus, we could add a GPL license to the next release of GRASS.
People who don't like it can always go back to the public domain version, 
but anyone working from the GPLed version is bound by it.

This is why I suggest making the main GRASS executables GPL, and the GRASS
libraries LGPL.  However, this would only apply to the next version.
One can not go back and retroactively GPL public domain software.


                                          Sincerely,
                                          David Mandel
                                          Chief Activist
                                          Portland Linux/Unix Group
                                          1440 NE 59th
                                          Portland, Oregon 97213

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