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This thread is veering off topic and I feel responsible. I am an
ardent supporter of GPL, open source, and PostGIS.<br>
I was trying to explain how a "traditional" software company might
react to a shift in licensing. I promote open source, I contribute
to it when I can. So far I have not been able to convince my
traditional employer to open source things I have done for him, but
I am getting much closer. My attitude is "give back, and help it get
even better."<br>
<br>
But let's drop that part -- Jim's ORIGINAL question was (in part)<br>
<br>
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Which means, that when I want to link lwgeom to another piece of
software (I'm thinking of spatialite here), this again needs to be
GPL and when I then want to link spatialite together with e.g. gdal
this again becomes GPL etc. etc. -- "<br>
<br>
MY understanding is that you can use GPL libraries without making
your derived program GPL -- spatialite or GDAL in this case -- see
the "GPL licensing exception". This gets into the whole GPL V1/V2/V3
thing. Which license covers liblwgeom? It looks like it's GPL V2.
Parts are under more permissive licenses. (eg GDAL).<br>
<br>
From the wikipedia page:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPL_linking_exception">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPL_linking_exception</a><br>
<br>
"
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Craig Mundie, Microsoft Senior Vice President has described the GPL
as being <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_license"
title="Viral license">"viral"</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-81"
class="reference"><a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License#cite_note-81"><span>[</span>81<span>]</span></a></sup>
Mundie argues that the GPL has a "viral" effect in that it only
allows the conveyance of whole programs, which means programs that <a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPL_linking_exception"
title="GPL linking exception">link</a> to GPL libraries must
themselves be under a GPL-compatible license, else they cannot be
combined and distributed.
<p>In the views of Richard Stallman, Mundie's metaphor of a "virus"
is wrong as software under the GPL does not "attack" or "infect"
other software. Stallman believes that comparing the GPL to a
virus is an extremely unfriendly thing to say, and that a better
metaphor for software under the GPL would be a <a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorophytum_comosum"
title="Chlorophytum comosum">spider plant</a>: If one takes a
piece of it and puts it somewhere else, it grows there too.<sup
id="cite_ref-82" class="reference"><a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License#cite_note-82"><span>[</span>82<span>]</span></a></sup><sup
id="cite_ref-83" class="reference"><a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License#cite_note-83"><span>[</span>83<span>]</span></a></sup><sup
id="cite_ref-84" class="reference"><a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License#cite_note-84"><span>[</span>84<span>]</span></a>"</sup></p>
Spatialite itself is also GPL V2 _or_ LGPL _or_ Mozilla Public
license. I consider this a little confusing but I am not worried!
They just want to make it easy for you to use and prevent it from
being locked up or patented.<br>
<br>
I think the real answer to Jim is "no" -- if you create a work that
uses spatialite and liblwgeom as libraries then you are working
entirely within the framework spelled out by GPL V2. Go for it! Is
there someone (Paul Ramsey? PostGIS foundation?) who can make this
unequivocal? If you don't change the library you are free to use it
in your own program without that program becoming GPL. <br>
<br>
When I use open source code in a library and I make a change to the
library, I always send the change back. <br>
<br>
Personally I want people to use the work I do, so my own leaning is
towards licenses like X/MIT, Apache, BSD and so on that are not
confusing. As in: "Do anything you want with this. If you break it
you can keep both pieces."<br>
<br>
Gotta go, spouse dragging me away from computer for family dinner,
cheers --<br>
<br>
Brian<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
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