[Qgis-developer] GPL in the Tips (warning: license's bigotry inside)

[Mayeul Kauffmann]

Hi Jean Roc,
I would suggest to change this tip to something widely accepted, for
instance:

----------------------
Quantum GIS 1.7 is released under the GNU General Public License
[version 3, am I correct?? or "version 3 or above"?].
The GNU General Public License is a free, copyleft license for software
and other kinds of works.
The licenses for most software and other practical works are designed to
take away your freedom to share and change the works. By contrast, the
GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to
share and change all versions of a program--to make sure it remains free
software for all its users.
----------------------
The above sentences (after the first one) are the first three sentences
of the Preamble of the GNU GPL v3, here:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
This is already translated in many languages here:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/translations.html
so this should help have have it translated by QGIS translators.

For reference, I copy below the message on QGIS' license posted by Marco
3 weeks ago:

De: 	Marco Hugentobler <marco.hugentobler at sourcepole.ch>
À: 	qgis-developer at lists.osgeo.org
Sujet: 	[Qgis-developer] GPLv2+ files and GPLv3+ files
Date: 	Thu, 3 Mar 2011 16:52:12 +0100

Hi devs

Following up on ticket 3432 (License conflict with GPLv3+ libs), I had
a 
discussion with Volker about it . The conclusion was that there is no
conflict, 
but the only way to distribute QGIS currently is under the terms of the
GPLv3. 
This is because most of the source files are under GPLv2+ (version2 or
any 
later version). However, PAL and the sqlanywhere plugin/provider sources
are 
GPLv3+.

In my opinion, GPLv3 shouldn't be a problem for the project. From the
GNU 
page, the major changes seem to be a clause that forbids discriminatory
patent 
deals and one that does not allow sueing DRM hackers.

Regards,
Marco






Le samedi 26 mars 2011 à 20:00 +0100, MORREALE Jean Roc a écrit :
> Hi,
> 
> I'm translating the Tips, this sentence caught my eye :
> 
> "The GPL places a restriction that any modifications you make must be 
> made available to the Quantum GIS project"
> 
> This is misleading, you only have to share your modification if you 
> distribute the binaries to somebody else. And even then you only have to 
> give access to the source code to the receivers, you don't have to send 
> your changes directly to the project.
> 
> For example if an geographic institute called *** made a client based on 
> QGIS supporting its in-house DRM access protocol, it would only have to 
> make the code available when distributing this version outside of the 
> institute.
> 
> Regards,
> Jean Roc
> 
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