[OSGeo-Discuss] The importance of a project's license

[Ian Turton]

On 27 July 2012 15:50, Mr. Puneet Kishor <punk.kish at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> On Jul 27, 2012, at 10:05 AM, Landon Blake <sunburned.surveyor at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > I think there is a tradeoff in the licensing decision between the
> > greater adoption that comes with a "weaker" license, and the stricter
> > adherence to open source principles that come with a "stronger"
> > license. (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html)
> >
> > I'm not making a statement about which license is better for OSGeo
> > Projects, I'm just making a general statement. I personally feel the
> > principles in the GPL and LGPL are more important than wider adoption
> > for my projects. But I'm just a hobby programmer.
>
>
> Yes, choice of license is a personal one, and while we may disagree on it,
> we have to abide by the choices that others make.
>
>
Actually choice of licence may be imposed on you by employer or sponsoring
organisation - for example the deal at Leeds University (where GeoTools
grew up) was that we were supposed to sell the code for as much as possible
or we could give it away under the GPL (and later the LGPL). If  the
University couldn't make money then no one could. Added to confusion was
the funding bodies determination that they also owned everything and giving
the code away was the easiest option.

The only thing I hate more than licence discussions is meetings with the
lawyers.

Ian

-- 
Ian Turton
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