[GRASS-dev] wingrass and external library distribution

[Glynn Clements]

Moritz Lennert wrote:

> Now that we seem to go to a more or less official release of a native 
> windows port, I wanted to raise a question concerning our distributing 
> external library binaries with the grass binaries.
> 
> As they are all (?) GPL, it should not be any problem to distribute 
> them, but I guess we need to include some more information about 
> copyright/left, or ? Should I add a copyright file to the distribution 
> which lists the information ? What would need to be in it ?

The GPL requires that you include a copy of the GPL. It doesn't
require that you add any other notices, e.g. information on who holds
the copyright.

> Currently, there is README.extralibs which for each library contains the 
> link to its homepage and an explanation of how it was compiled. Maybe 
> that is enough ?

Apart from including a copy of the GPL, the other main requirement is
that the source code is available "from the same place" as the
binaries. It is *not* sufficient to refer the user to a different
site.

Alternatively, we could include a written offer to provide the source
code on demand, but then we have to keep a copy of the source code
around for at least three years in case anyone ever takes us up on it
(don't assume that the source code for the specific version which we
include will still be available elsewhere in three years' time).

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