[GRASS5] v.in.dwg license problem

[Bernhard Reiter]

On Wed, May 14, 2003 at 10:45:17PM +1200, H Bowman wrote:
> > > Noticed that v.in.dwg from GRASS 5.1
> > > (http://freegis.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/grass51/vector/v.in.dwg/)
> > > uses the proprietory library opendwg.
> > > As I believe that it also needs the GRASS libraries which
> > > are under GNU GPL, this means that v.in.dwg has a severe license
> > > problem.
> 
> see also
> http://freegis.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/grass/src.nonGPL/
> 
> I suppose the worry is that if it is included in the main source
> distribution, an over zealous packager might build it into a binary at
> some point.

That is a good description of one of the fears.

> I'd think having it live in CVS (with a note where to look in the
> v.in.dxf man page) should be fine- forces the user to compile it
> themselves but doesn't hide it. ???

It should be separate from main GRASS core
in a directory like nonGPL. Otherwise we would need a statement
clarifying that GRASS is not completely GNU GPL compatible
and I would not like it as it would frighten away many people
in the mid run.

Note that GRASS development picked up after we clarified
the license to be GNU GPL. We don't want to get less attractive
to Free Software developers again.

	Bernhard

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