License needed!

[Bernhard Reiter]

On Mon, Oct 18, 1999 at 02:56:32PM -0700, David Mandel wrote:
> On Fri, 8 Oct 1999, Bernhard Reiter wrote:

> > 	GRASS still does not come with a real license [1].
> >         --------------------------------------------------
> In fact, given the role of GRASS as almost the only
> "OpenSource"  or "Free" GIS around, this is a matter of great importance
> to the entire Free Software community.

True. 

> I spent last week at the Atlanta Linux Showcase with members of the
> debbian group and they convinced me that the current license situation 
> will keep GRASS out of the Linux mainstream, unless it is corrected.

I think we met at the FSF booth. Hi David.

> Hence, I suggest putting GRASS under a freer license like GPL or LGPL.
The GPL has many advantages for the LGPL.
The LGPL (Lesser Public License) IMO should not be choosen.
The former name (Library Public License) suggested this license for 
libraries, but this was a misunderstanding. Libraries also should use
the GPL. 


A sidenote to your other post:
You are right, anybody can claim ownership and copyright
over a public domain software done by a US Governmental organisation.
(You just have to make minor changes to it.)

This also rules out the possibilty of putting it under an BSD license,
when it was done by the US Army, because they could not claim
copyright. :)

For GRASS, because Baylor and Markus and others did a lot of work on
it, they can claim ownership and license GRASS 5.0 under GPL!

	Bernhard


-- 
Research Assistant, Geog Dept UM-Milwaukee, USA.    (www.uwm.edu/~bernhard)
Association for a Free Informational Infrastructure              (ffii.org)
Intevation GmbH 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 288 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/grass-user/attachments/19991018/6f5e655f/attachment.bin