[GRASS5] Proprietory Frontend for Mac OS X (was: Grass Projection Parameters)

[Glynn Clements]

Jan-Oliver Wagner wrote:

> Consider this scenario: Jeshua markets his GUI frontend
> successfully and sponsors development of GRASS.
> At some point the developers think it is a good
> idea to change the infrastructure in a way that would
> make it incompatible with the proprietary GUI frontend.
> With the financial dependency, would the developers
> be entirely free in technological decision making?

It would depend upon the extent to which GRASS was actually
*dependent* upon that sponsorship. Ultimately, anyone who wasn't happy
with decisions taken by the "official" maintainers would be free to
take a copy of the GRASS code and go their own way.

> Jeshua, I hope you make a hell lot of money with a GUI frontend,
> but please with a Free Software one. It makes sense and will work!
> According to your initial statement, Mac users will buy the nice
> colored box from the shelf where you have placed Free Software and
> printed manuals rather then downloading the stuff and printing the manuals
> on their own. 

But if he released the front-end under the GPL (or any licence which
permits royalty-free redistribution), nothing would prohibit a third
party from downloading the code and documention, making their own CDs
and manuals, and selling them for less.

This is the entire reason why the concept of copyright exists.

I would suggest that anyone who would prefer to see a free (e.g. GPL)
front-end for GRASS would do better to actually start coding it than
to implore others to do so.

-- 
Glynn Clements <glynn.clements at virgin.net>