[GRASSLIST:1250] Re: creating a desktop GIS application using GRASS

[Bernhard Reiter]

On Tue, Sep 16, 2003 at 02:32:46PM +0200, Radim Blazek wrote:
> It makes perfectly sense for me, but GPL does not allow that. 

Deliberately so,
because not all GRASS developers agree with Radim's mission 
to promote the development of proprietary software
on top of GRASS.

> Because GRASS libraries are covered by GPL, you cannot distribute 
> proprietary SW linked to GRASS libraries. 

I feel that if somebody want to profit from the development
many people have put into GRASS, they should give their developments back.
History has shown that proprietary software makers for GRASS
do not help GRASS, but keep it low.

> But don't give up immediately! I think that it is possible either:
> 1) Fulfil old plan to release GRASS IO libraries under LGPL. 

It was not discussed further when it became clear 
that this will include a lot of GRASS' code.

> 2) Take old version of GRASS released as 'Public domain', release it
>    under some reasonable license (MIT/X) and do again all the bugfixing
>    porting etc. wich was done in current GRASS. Certainly it is not
>    possible to take improvements directly from current version, but
>    I think, that it is legal to compare old and current version to identify
>    what must be changed and then to code it without looking to current 
>    GPL version, maybe not, maybe danger for future?

To do this without violation copyrights might mean you need 
to find developers which haven't looked a the GRASS code at all
and won't do it in the future.

> 3) Write completely new library under better license.
> Maybe start with 1) and later switch to 3). 

I cannot recommend writing proprietary software at all,
so the real question would be, what the business model behind this all is.
Many real business models will work if GRASS and Bill's developments
stay Free Software.

> On Wednesday 10 September 2003 15:06, Bill Dickinson Jr wrote:
> > Not to muddy the waters any more on this topic, but I had a couple of
> > pennies worth of thoughts to throw in since we are talking about
> > creating a commercial product out of GRASS. ;-)

As far as I can tell you want to make a proprietary product out of GRASS. 
This is not something many Free Software people will like,
because you want to profiting from the freedom they gave you
without giving them or other people the same opportunity.

> > Our basic theory for any commercial product is to develop, in ESRI
> > terms, an extension to existing GIS software with our proprietary
> > approach and techniques as the extra value added. 

> > In my mind, the way to sell a commercial GRASS product is
> > along the lines of the OpenOSX cd-rom, just with a twist towards
> > whatever your proprietary application may be - in our case,
> > proprietary image processing and analysis technologies for
> > archaeological purposes.
> >
> > I would like to end up with a cd-rom that would contain (1) all of
> > the packages necessary to install GRASS on the various operating
> > systems (a separate cd-rom for each OS, not all on the same cd-rom),
> > and (2) our proprietary "extension" to GRASS along with the
> > documentation on how to use it. What we would be selling is the use
> > of our proprietary stuff along with the cd-rom installation of GRASS
> > (the same as OpenOSX), including the tech support for the entire
> > bundle.

It would be okay to sell a branded GRASS distribution with tech support.

> > the value added to the open source GRASS packages being our
> > proprietary application, the tech support, and the bundled cd-rom
> > itself. 

If you add proprietary software this should be more clearly called
"freedom substracted", because that is what you propose.
The movement towards Free Software is sensitive on this issue
so it would give you a bad image in that circles.

> > I think this type of approach also benefits the general GRASS
> > development effort as well. 

I doubt it.
GRASS history shows a couple of those projects,
and the benefit for GRASS was minimal and 
the balance negativ in the long run.

The split that Radim suggests will cost us important development resources
and gain us people that are in there for the short term money motivations.

> > One way that GRASS development will
> > continue to advance is through solid commercial applications using
> > the software. Put together a bundle like what I outline above, a
> > bundle that allows you to pop in a cd-rom, install all the needed
> > software and get working with minimal fuss, and you will see a lot
> > more people using GRASS. 

Many people can already test GRASS pretty easily.
I don't think that this is the main area commercial (Free Software) GRASS 
needs to gain much. We need more GIS service providers to 
use GRASS and support its development.

> > Does anyone see a problem with this approach in light of this recent
> > discussion on licensing?

As outlined about there are practical and ethical problems
in addition to the licensing one.

	Bernhard
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