[OSGeo-Discuss] Lidar News magazine false statements on (L)GPL (Was [OSGeo-Standards] REPORT: my OGC membership slot)

[Jo Cook]

I think this is something that we at OSGeo should definitely respond to.
Perhaps we could contact the magazine and explain that there were some
factual errors in the article, and ask for a chance to respond?

Jo

On Mon, Sep 21, 2015 at 10:38 AM, Johan Van de Wauw <
johan.vandewauw at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Sep 18, 2015 at 6:31 PM, Martin Isenburg
> <martin.isenburg at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Another curious thing is that I (and the open source license LGPL) was
> > attacked vehemently in a recent column called "Open Source Mania" by
> Lewis
> > Graham that was published in the LiDAR News magazine. Viewer discretion
> > advised and parental guidance suggested ... you will not like this FUD
> > attack:
> >
> >
> http://www.lidarmag.com/PDF/LiDARNewsMagazine_Graham-OpenSourceMania_Vol5No4.pdf
> >
>
> I read the article and there are a lot of statements there which are false.
> " if you touch a piece of GPL code with the nine foot pole of
> launching it with a Python script, that script must now be GPLed"
> not true
>
> "Suppose you have developed some very, very clever algorithm on which
> you and your university have applied for a patent. If you have coded
> your algorithm and used any GPL whatsoever, you just GPLed your
> patent. The patent rights effectively transfer to the Open Software
> Foundation for free distribution."
>
> Completely untrue. The Open Software Foundation does not exist. You
> don't transfer patent rights at all. A well known counter-example is
> the algortihm for MP3, where the code (lame) was released under LGPL.
>
> I think as OSGeo we should reply to the statements, this is an attack
> on our community. Perhaps we can ask someone from the Free Software
> Foundation Europe to help write a response?
>
> Kind Regards,
> Johan
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>



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*Jo Cook*
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