[OSGeo-Discuss] GDAL and ESRI

[Andrew Ross]

Hi All,

Adding to this discussion, there are a spectrum of open source licenses
measured in terms of what they allow to derivative works. At one end of the
spectrum, the GPL stipulates that if you base your software on a component
that is licensed with the GPL license *and* distribute it, that derivative
work must be licensed under the GPL license.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are licenses that are very liberal
in terms of what they allow - BSD and MIT are good examples of this. Reusing
a component licensed under the BSD or MIT license does affect a derivative
work.

In terms of the GPL, distribution is a key. If you do not distribute your
derivative work, then it does not become GPL. An example of this would be
strictly in-house use, or developing a web based service. The exception, be
aware there is a different class of the GPL, the Affero GPL that applies in
the case of web services. With this license, you do not have to redistribute
to trigger the "GPL contamination" - building a web service is enough to do
so.

There's a good video on what you should look out for and relative merits of
various licenses here: http://www.fosslc.org/drupal/node/523 The 3 licenses
discussed in this video are at opposite ends and roughly in the middle of
the above spectrum.

Andrew

2009/11/7 Yves Jacolin (free) <yjacolin at free.fr>

> Le samedi 07 novembre 2009, Ravi a écrit :
> > How come ESRI uses GDAL too, does open source support closed source too.
>
> Hi,
>
> It depends the OS Licence. GDAL licence is BSD-Like  [1].
>
> Some other are usinng GPL-LIKe licence. This kind of licence does not allow
> closed source to user open source licence. They need to "open" their source
> using a GPL-Like licence [2].
>
> This is quiet complicated ;)
>
> Y.
> [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_licenses
> [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License
> --
> Yves Jacolin
> -------------
> "Donner la liberté aux individus ne suffit pas, il faut aussi leur donner
> du
> pouvoir, de la puissance d'agir." M Gauchet
>
> "Give freedom to people is not enough, we also have to give them the power
> to use this freedom, to act". M Gauchet
> -------------
> http://yjacolin.gloobe.org
> http://softlibre.gloobe.org
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-- 
Andrew
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