[GRASS-dev] GRASS inefficiency and FFTW

[Glynn Clements]

Hamish wrote:

> > What is menaningful is to learn from the GRASS NR
> > case, something for our understanding of Free Software
> > in general: that the idealistic idea of Bazzar is
> > simply wrong in many cases.
> > Open Source advocates usually says that the solution
> > to a problem in the "Open Source model" would be the
> > best possible solution.
> ..
> > Probably my mistake is to think that this solution is
> > necessarily related to the "freedom" of software. 
> 
> The NR example has little to do with "freedom" software -- regardless of
> GRASS being a GPL project or proprietary one, we must still observe
> copyright law and remove any possible infringements.
> 
> A question might be: would it be more efficient to work under a "bandit"
> license and ignore copyright law? Yes, until the day when we all get
> arrested, at which point productivity declines.
> 
> But maybe if we were proprietary we could buy our way out of the problem
> by licensing the NR code, which could be considered "more efficient",
> depending on the licensing costs vs. the cost of developer time. (but as
> apparently we already had special permission to use the NR code, this is
> somewhat moot for the NR example)

The problem is that we couldn't then use other people's GPL code, as
we wouldn't be distributing the end result under the GPL.

Also, what does the "use within GRASS only" restriction on the NR code
actually mean for a GPL'd project? If someone takes the GRASS code and
starts modifying it, at what point does their version cease to be
"GRASS"?

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