GNU GPL license have an advantage for me in that it makes impossible to redistribute derived works without returning patches to the J community. This limit is important to me since I don't know how long and how intensively I'll be able to support this addon. MIT license seems more suitable for companies which have possibility to develop software for a long time by oneself.
Besides virality and copyleft, other limits of GNU GPL license are seemed auxiliary and not too restrictive. Anyone is permitted to get GPL-ed addon, modify it if needed, use solely without duty to open patches, or sold it with patches supplied. Both MIT license and modified BSD license (used in LAPACK [1]) are compatible with GNU GPL [2]. If JAL has MIT license, then it seems that legal releasing of GPL-ed addon is possible. As of JE/JFE, the problem would arise if they were depended on GPL-ed addon, and can't work without it. But this is not our case. Another aspect: evoking GPL-ed addon from JE/JFE (say, from Labs or Demos). In this case JE/JFE and GNU GPL-ed addon won't "make function calls to each other and share data structures", hence, they can't considered as derived works of each other [3], hence, JE/JFE are out of an obligation to obey GPL license. Though may be I'm wrong... --- [1] http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg00160.html [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_FSF_approved_software_licenses [3] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLPluginsInNF -- WBR Igor ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
