Jon S. Berndt wrote: > > I hope you agree with me that Boeing was very reasonable. I do hope we can > be equally reasonable and fair, and comply with the GPL at the same time. > This will require some creativity and thought. > I won't argue the fairness of their position, but it's simply not compatible with the GPL. Even if you interpret their statement as a simple request to not use their name in promoting FlightGear or JSBSim, that's the same thing as the "no advertising" clause that kept the BSD license from being compatible with the GPL for years.
> [As an aside, I think it would be proper to apply the same approach > (licensing, disclaimers, or whatever) across the board to all aircraft > models where the company still exists or where the IP is still clearly > owned.] > > A key phrase in the above reply from Boeing is, " if a situation arises in > which the aircraft models are to be sold for a profit, please contact us". > Here again is the use of the word, "profit". There is also the concept that > all of the models are freely available, so that if someone is selling a copy > of FlightGear and models, it can be argued that they could not possibly be > deriving "profit" from selling a collection of files that is already > available freely, but are instead deriving a profit from selling > "convenience". Many people, including my employer, would argue the contrary point for GPL'ed software in general. People who make money consulting with FlightGear, let alone selling it in a product, couldn't agree with you either. Let's take an example of a use for the B314: an engineer is payed by a museum to set up a B314 simulator using FlightGear, and the software (with source) is available on DVD in the gift shop. This is obviously permitted by the GPL, but it is not permitted by Boeing *unless you negotiate an additional license with them*. > > Nevertheless, I am not a lawyer. I don't have much time to think about this > right now, but I think there's some valuable input being supplied here (and > offline). Is there a consensus forming? Doubtful. We can't say that "all the models in the repository are covered by the GPL" and have models in there that are not. This is a terrible trap for anyone wanting to use FlightGear in any professional setting. We should consider why we want FlightGear and its models to be under the GPL in the first place. I suggest that we do because it's a very well known license that nicely balances the contributors' desire to give something to the community and at the same time not have their work be unfairly exploited. For the aircraft models, there are 3 not-very-attractive choices: * Don't say the aircraft are GPL'ed. "Models are under any random license; seller beware." Yuck. * Rip out the non-GPLed models. * Create GPL'ed and "other" aircraft repositories. Tim ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This SF.net email is sponsored by: SourcForge Community SourceForge wants to tell your story. http://p.sf.net/sfu/sf-spreadtheword _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
