On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 11:18:26AM +0000, Garth N. Wells wrote: > > > On 17/02/11 11:16, Harish Narayanan wrote: > > On 2/17/11 12:11 PM, Garth N. Wells wrote: > >> > >> > >> On 17/02/11 11:08, Harish Narayanan wrote: > >>> On 2/17/11 11:56 AM, Garth N. Wells wrote: > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> On 17/02/11 10:27, Harish Narayanan wrote: > >>>>> Dear FEniCS enthusiasts, > >>>>> > >>>>> I am going to reiterate a concern that I tried to bring up earlier > >>>>> regarding the copyright consent forms. Please chime in with your views. > >>>>> > >>>>> I understand the rationale behind using LGPL for core FEniCS components > >>>>> (e.g. DOLFIN and FFC). It makes sense to me that these projects could > >>>>> form a part of future (potentially proprietary) applications. The > >>>>> developers of such applications clearly have to bring in a lot of > >>>>> domain-specific knowledge. I can see why they might want to keep such > >>>>> knowledge proprietary, and I can see how moving to LGPL brings them into > >>>>> the community at least as users of FEniCS. > >>>>> > >>>>> But the same logic doesn't hold (in my mind) for FEniCS Apps. Some of > >>>>> these function reasonably well and are already capable of solving select > >>>>> domain-specific problems. Aren't they, in a sense, closer to complete, > >>>>> immediately useful applications? Given this, does it make sense that > >>>>> they too should be released under LGPL? What is then to prevent someone > >>>>> from, say, slapping a GUI on a well-functioning solver and selling it as > >>>>> a tool? > >>>>> > >>>> > >>>> I'm not sure what you're advocating. That FEniCS Apps should be GPL? > >>> > >>> Yes, or at least be left to the developer's choice. I am not keen on > >>> past contributions to FEniCS Apps under GPL now suddenly being > >>> transferred to LGPL. > >>> > >> > >> I'm perfectly happy with FEniCS Apps developers choosing for themselves > >> between GPL and LGPL. I thought that this was the present situation? > > > > That is not what the text of the copyright consent form suggests. I > > would like if what you said was made more explicit. > > > > Link for easy access: > > http://www.fenicsproject.org/pub/copyright/forms/letter-author.pdf > > > > OK. > > Since we don't distribute FEniCS Apps, I don't see why they've been > included on the consent form.
FEniCS Apps is still a part of FEniCS so it's reasonable to include it on the form. And it would have been good to bring this up before we started sending out and collecting the forms. There are a number of possibilities: 1. Allow FEniCS Apps to select either GPL or LGPL. In that case we can construct an optional form for Harish. 2. Require that FEniCS Apps use LGPL as the rest of FEniCS. In that case developers that object to the LGPL can take their projects elsewhere (or rather keep them on Launchpad). The only difference would be that they are not promoted as a FEniCS App from the FEniCS web page. 3. Discontinue FEniCS Apps and don't require anything for the projects currently part of FEniCS Apps. We could still have a page on fenicsproject.org which linked to projects based on FEniCS. Since we don't provide any infrastructure for the Apps (Launchpad does), the difference would be small. -- Anders _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~fenics Post to : [email protected] Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~fenics More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
