[GRASS5] Leaving

[Glynn Clements]

Thierry Laronde wrote:

> > But if you go with a license which doens't require changes to be
> > contributed back, a developer has no incentive to provide those changes
> > back to the community. If the license does require it, the incentive is
> > the ability to use the software in the first place.
> 
> The incentive for giving code is to be rewarded by recognition
> (that's why a BSD licence _without_ the advertisement is a non sense),
> and by the strong feeling that he belongs to a community (a developer
> community) from which he benefits (he's not the only one to work; the
> principle "Hey, give me your watch and in exchange, to be fair, I will
> tell you what time it is" has never attracted anybody). 

I don't think that's an accurate analogy. In fact, it's probably the
exact opposite. Any derivative work is more likely to be 95% GRASS and
5% contribution than the other way around.

IMHO, expecting the authors of the 5% to allow their work to be used
under the GPL is more reasonable than expecting the authors of the 95%
to allow their work to be used under a proprietary licence.

I'm not concerned with a committed proprietary software developer who
will either:

a) use GRASS, but give us nothing in return, or
b) not use GRASS.

Neither possibility provides any benefit to us.

IMHO, a more plausible scenario is an academic department that extends
GRASS primarily for their own purposes, then has to decide what to do
with the derivative work. If we allow proprietary derivatives, they
may choose (or even be required, e.g. by institutional policy or
financial pressures) to take that route. If we don't allow that, their
best alternative may well be to release the code in the hope that
others will extend it to their benefit.

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