On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 01:02:20PM +0100, Henrik Alsing Friberg wrote:
> 2011/11/11 Carnë Draug <carandraug+...@gmail.com>:
> > Hi Henrik
> >
> > It seems that your package can't be GPL because it's linking octave
> > with non-free software. I'm not sure we can include it at the moment.
> > I'll try to figure it out first. Would be nice if someone with more
> > knowledged on this legal issues could join in.
> >
> > By the way, are you really one of the MOSEK developers? Is the library
> > itself planning to becoming more free as well?
> >
> > Carnë
> >
>
> Okay, let me give you a little background for the project now that you
> have asked.. The MOSEK optimization library is currently often used
> through the MATLAB interface. Some customers have expressed a wish to
> use the Octave interface instead, while other customers yet again have
> mentioned an interface to the R-project (another open source program).
I'm honestly surprised by these requests. Any chance for these customers
to show up here?
> So one day, it is decided to hire a guy to develop these interfaces in
> the open source environments, and this is where I joined in. Of
> course, using MOSEK from Octave should not only be possible, but also
> a pleasant experience. So as part of my job, I am allowed (and
> encouraged) to make contributions to Octave if it can be regarded as
> beneficial to the Octave-to-MOSEK interface users. In the case of the
> R-project interface, I have already made several contributions to the
> "Matrix" package. Finally, and naturally, all my interfaces,
> userguides and other contributions have an open source license - i.e.
> GPL / LGPL.
I see. I must say that I find this information interesting: You
obviously had no problem getting the R-Mosek interface onto r-forge,
despite R being an official GNU project as well.
> With respect to legal matters of the OctMOSEK package, I can assure
> you that everything is in order. OctMOSEK will be distributed under
> the Lesser GPL license, with explicit permissions from the copyright
> holder (me) to allow dependence on the GPL-incompatible MOSEK library.
This is pretty much besides the point. You include headers from Octave
in your .oct files, so you are *not* free to choose your license
arbitrarily. Well, actually you are free, but the resulting binaries
cannot be distributed.
> ---------------------------
> (Q1) Can Octave, under the GPL license, make use of packages under the
> lesser GPL license?
> ---------------------------
>
> (A1.2) Since packages are dynamically loaded from *.oct files, and
> neither package names nor data structures are hard-coded into Octave,
> they form a loose plug-in like relationship. That is, as long as a
> package is not shipped with the binary versions of Octave, it can not
> be considered an integral part of Octave. So with respect to this
> question (Q1) it is legal to load packages into Octave, even when they
> are not GPL-compatible. This can be compared to operating systems
> where closed source software is allowed to execute on the GPL-licensed
> linux kernel.
Linus has repeatedly stated that he considers software that #includes the
kernel headers to _not_ form a derivative work of the kernel. The same
cannot be said of Octave.
> ---------------------------
> (Q2) Can a package under the lesser GPL license (e.g. OctMOSEK), make
> use of a GPL-incompatible library (e.g. the MOSEK library)?
> ---------------------------
> ---------------------------
> (Q3) Can a package under the lesser GPL license, make use of the
> GPL-licensed Octave API?
> ---------------------------
You are missing a very obvious question here:
(Q4) Is it actually possible to choose a non-GPL license for source code
that #includes headers from Octave (and distribute the resulting
binaries)?
Oh, and to make that clear: I'm very much in favor of adding your code
to octave-forge, but your (L)GPL arguments do not cut it. My opinion is
based on some very simple observations:
1) nonfree/ was part of octave-forge right from the start. It's not like
there's some change in the intentions of the project.
2) Putting a package in a directory called nonfree/ sends a clear
message of what the octave-forge developers think of the code.
3) More code under GPL is better than less code under GPL.
Thomas
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
All the data continuously generated in your IT infrastructure
contains a definitive record of customers, application performance,
security threats, fraudulent activity, and more. Splunk takes this
data and makes sense of it. IT sense. And common sense.
http://p.sf.net/sfu/splunk-novd2d
_______________________________________________
Octave-dev mailing list
Octave-dev@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/octave-dev
