[GRASS5] libgrass license?

[Frank Warmerdam]

Hamish wrote:
> One would have to check that the included "majority of the GRASS libgis,
> and libdatetime" is only old public domain code and not newer GPL
> additions, which cannot be arbitrarily re-licensed by a 3rd party as
> LGPL, AFAIK.

Hamish,

It is true that libgrass should likely be GPL, not LGPL.

> Surely the file format isn't that complicated that GRASS libraries have
> to be used for read/write. The programmer's manual should provide enough
> info for a clean non-GPL library to be written, even if it is a pain to
> reproduce working code. (which would be the GRASS++ library, which would
> eventually be destined to be included with GDAL/OGR under the MIT/X
> license?)
> 
> 
> Currently GDAL skirts the issue by not including libgrass.
> They should be careful about what options their official binaries
> include though.

Well, it would be interesting to see who has the legal resources to sue me
if I distribute a GDAL build with libgrass support included.  Somehow I
doubt anyone is sufficiently interested.

That said, the GPL nature of the GRASS 5 code base, and the licensing
complications that implies are part of why I haven't spent much time updating
libgrass and libgrass support in GDAL.

Best regards,

-- 
---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | Geospatial Programmer for Rent