-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Thank you very much Francesco!
I would like to implement a free alternative to PSICOV, therefore I have contacted the authors of glasso and asked them to consider changing the license to GPL-2+ (2 or later), as you recommended. Best regards, Laszlo On 01/11/12 13:09, Francesco Poli wrote: > On Tue, 30 Oct 2012 19:31:22 +0100 Laszlo Kajan wrote: > > [...] >> Dear Team members! > > Hello Laszlo, > I am a debian-legal regular and what follows is my own personal opinion > on the issue (from the licensing point of view). > The usual disclaimers apply (IANAL, TINLA, ...). > >> >> PSICOV [1], a protein contact prediction tool, is built with a patched >> version of the GPL-2 Fortran source glasso [2]: >> >> gfortran -O3 psicov.c glasso_psicov.f90 -lm -lgsl -lgslcblas -o psicov > > This seems to create an executable binary of PSICOV, statically linked > with the modified version of glasso, and dynamically linked with the > GNU Scientific Library. > >> >> The license of PSICOV does not seem free to me [3], with restrictions on >> commercial use > [...] > > The license of PSICOV indeed seems to include a number of definitely > non-free restrictions and really appears to be GPL-v2-incompatible and > GPL-v3-incompatible. > > At the same time, glasso seems to be released under the terms of the > GNU GPL v2 (only v2, I would say, since I didn't spot any "or later > version" permission in the somewhat unclear glasso_1.7.tar.gz source > archive). > > The GNU GSL is released under the terms of the GNU GPL v3 or later > (http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/main/g/gsl/current/copyright). > > This makes for a very odd mutually-incompatible license mix: > the GNU GPL v3 is incompatible with the GNU GPL v2, and the PSICOV > license is incompatible with both. > >> >> If I understand GPL well, this simply is not allowed: PSICOV is not allowed >> to restrict what is granted by glasso's license (and that does not >> limit any of the above). The question is: >> >> * Do I see it correctly that PSICOV's license violates the GPL-2 terms of >> glasso? > > I think that the PSICOV binary (built as described above) is legally > undistributable: its distribution appears to violate the copyright of > glasso and of the GNU Scientific Library. > > > The possible solutions I can think of are (in order of descending > desirability): > > (A) contact the PSICOV copyright holder(s) and persuade them to > re-license PSICOV under GPL-compatible terms (for instance under the > terms of the GNU GPL v2 or later); at the same time contact the GNU > Scientific Library copyright holder(s) and persuade them to re-license > GSL under the terms of the GNU GPL *v2* or later (rather than GPL v3 or > later) > > (B) contact the PSICOV copyright holder(s) and persuade them to > re-license PSICOV under GPL-compatible terms (for instance under the > terms of the GNU GPL v2 or later); at the same time contact the glasso > copyright holder(s) and persuade them to re-license glasso under the > terms of the GNU GPL v2 *or later* (rather than GPL v2 only) > > (C) refrain completely from distributing PSICOV > > > Please note that solution (A) is unlikely, since the GNU Scientific > Library, as part of the GNU Project, is supposed to promote the GNU GPL > v3 (due to the FSF propaganda). > Maybe solution (B) has more chances to be achievable... > > > I hope that my own personal take on this matter helps a bit. > > Bye and good luck. > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://www.enigmail.net/ iQIcBAEBAgAGBQJQkquBAAoJEJvS1kCaDFL6I4sQAMypVuqLTqZk82UxOX9LN2i8 lX6GDcbynz28zSymczF7kSSo/m02K6D0fgxKB8Le3PQKdFKB0saqbidjpCxPzShE pHEjHTlrcDbwRnt3cFfFq52PjSDRDKq9xfuGFMCsglPCJwOFKgz3/kzJFxIxB/tu +PuXfAR/PLeDKJvvrqklATMASdwcSFIwpIeI7a8v8IqR7rX54OVNSguWljf9Qtoy FEsAccflPk9ImTpnsL0cPkT/dCSuTP/df0nu7h5sP0NBO4BJB2jRhKdGr2MbQT/T To1aokgru2XXc03JFM0evrp5NlnNYi+SoGeUmmUKJK7TQgRyNRPZHkmzsFdAJLSh nFwe9x1Tt6H2B9oAIzTBhhsTRZEo5PyjGz0afjeV/F8khXHtH5fdlpLycKu1oTvp ti52CS/5c0N9RM6VoslVvriuI8upy/JAIkD0UCdAJo7iLYLVf171nxb5lL2EXRff SVk03sa16A/86BAXAeRxqKFtuA7vrZcuKjTtEMkiFBDFczxYxIccn8r5BeXeUpUD wqAWyx2RXELaB3rS7Cod/uTpdCIGVPGK6LKiWPgnvzAYNq901DB7a47BjD4O69p9 T2uz81v0FhsBKvg7u8JW2hLXSOw9ZL1FeZIz7QSqxYFAosAKj2NF3/QMA7ExNWlw A4BXM6V5vo6YmB2l0gL9 =xY5d -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected] Archive: http://lists.debian.org/[email protected]
