[GRASS5] New info on openDWG

[Moritz Lennert]

Michael,

I am certainly no expert on this, but you seem to err in one point:

[...]

> He assured me that
> the
> alliance's intent was only to restrict or control commercial use of their
> libraries, not use in educational or free software. I described GRASS and
> he
> felt that--based on my description--this fit their intent to permit
> openDWG
> to be used in non-commercial applications developed by Associate Members.

[...]

> Unless there is some catch to the GRASS GPL license that I am missing
> (quite
> possible, I suppose, given my lack of legal expertise), I think we can
> distribute openDWG libraries with GRASS as long as we don't sell GRASS
> commercially--something prohibited by the GPL license.
>

The GPL in no way prohibits commercial distribution of software (look at
all the GNU/Linux Distributions that sell GPL'd software). Free in the
sense of free software (and in the sense of the GPL), does not mean
non-commercial, it means the freedom to access, modify and redistribute
modified version of the source code. But you have every right to sell
GPL'd software, including.

So some people might want to sell GRASS, but if there is a v.in.dwg this
would not be legal with an associative membership of the Open Design
Alliance. Their system is incompatible with the GPL since it takes away
the freedom to do as they wish with the software. This is why including it
in the distribution would limit GRASS in a way deemed inacceptable for
many developers.

I hope that those who know better than me will correct any mistakes in the
above...

Moritz