[GRASSLIST:10801] Re: [GRASS5] FWD: [OSGeo-Discuss] Incubation Committee / Contributor Agreements]

[Glynn Clements]

Paolo Cavallini wrote:

> A professional user view: for us, it is VERY important to have guarantees that 
> the GRASS code will remain free. The risk of hijacking is a serious threat to 
> our business.

Regardless of whatever happens with OSGeo, you will always be able to
use existing versions under the GPL. The proposed OSGeo CLA creates
the possibility that future enhancements might not be under the GPL. 
But regardless of OSGeo, there's no actual guarantee that future
enhancements will occur, or that they will take GRASS in a direction
which is suitable for your purposes.

As I see it, the main risk of allowing proprietary derivatives is a
risk of "siphoning off" developers and beta testers (aka "users") from
the free version towards a "mostly, but not quite" free version.

IMHO, the biggest risk is with versions which are "free-enough for
most people", e.g. "free for non-commercial use". OpenDWG is probably
a good example; it isn't "Free Software", but it's close enough to
significantly reduce the chances of a genuinely-free alternative being
developed.

-- 
Glynn Clements <glynn at gclements.plus.com>