[GRASS5] license question

[Radim Blazek]

On Sunday 21 March 2004 09:29, Hamish wrote:
> grass/src/general/init/license.txt
> and
> grass51/lib/init/license.txt
>
> state:
> "Geographic Resources Analysis Support System (GRASS) is Copyright,
> 1999-2004 by the GRASS Development Team, and licensed under terms of the
> GNU General Public License (GPL)."
>
> Should that specifically say GPL version 2?
>
> The COPYING files do; 

I dont know if it is important in license.txt, but I have changed it
in grass51 to "GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2."

COPYING says "either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version"
and many source files "GNU General Public License (>=v2)"
(recommended in grass/SUBMITTING).

I think that to use a license which nobody knows is nonsense.
If the next version will be compatible, people can 
change the license in future - no need to give permission now.
I don't think that we want to give now permission to relicense 
GRASS, using a license non compatible with current license.

> they also say:
>
> "You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
> along with this program; if not, write to ..."
>
> where is GPL.TXT in 5.7?

I have submitted GPL.TXT to CVS.

> or do we (meaning the primary authors of 5.7,
> not me) want to figure out how to licence any new libraries before that
> file is added to the archive?

These days I was inspecting the possibility to change the license 
of vector libraries from GPL to LGPL, it brings me to 5.0 history
in general. I'll send some results and questions in separate mail.

Radim