License needed!

[Bruce Byars]

Greetings GRASS community,

As I have noted in two previous posts, we are working on the
best licensing approach and expect to have answers shortly.
Please be patient.

Bruce



Bernhard Reiter wrote:

> 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
>
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