I guess one problem is who is in charge of the name Rcpp on CRAN. For instance, can I "fork" of yet another version of Rcpp (or any other CRAN package) and submit it to CRAN? Can the original author submit a completely different Rcpp package breaking all the additions made by the new contributors? I don't think the GPL answers those questions, but maybe there is something on the ownership to the (original) "title/label/name/identifier" of a GPL artifact.
My $.02 /Henrik On Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 1:00 PM, Stavros Macrakis <macra...@alum.mit.edu> wrote: > The central purpose of the GPL license is precisely to allow and indeed > encourage the behavior your are criticizing. In particular, when you > release software under the GPL, you are *explicitly* giving recipients of > the software the right to modify it pretty much in any way (trivial or > radical) they please and redistribute it by any means they choose (as long > as they redistribute source with binary and maintain the legal notices). > There is no legal or ethical obligation to consult the original author in > any way, or even to acknowledge the original author other than by > maintaining his or her copyright notice. The only legal obligation is to > maintain the copyright notice and the GPL license itself and to include a > notice that the software has been modified (GPL3 section 5a). > > This is not an accident. The promulgators of the GPL, the FSF, believe that > these are the conditions under which software is best distributed -- that > implementors should be free to combine bits and pieces of software from a > variety of GPL-compatible licenses with no fear of violating any of their > licenses. > > Obviously these legal and ethical conditions are quite different from those > which prevail in academic publishing, and if you don't like them, you should > be releasing your software under a different license -- which will probably > have the effect of making your software less useful to the community and > therefore less widely known and used. > > -s > > > On Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 11:05 AM, Dominick Samperi > <djsamp...@earthlink.net>wrote: > >> In my view what has happened is not much different from a situation where I >> place my >> name as co-author on a research paper that you have created, without your >> permission, >> after making a few small edits that you may not agree with. Furthermore, if >> you complain >> I simply present the results (at conferences) as my own without mentioning >> your name. >> >> Is this just a dispute between implementers? >> >> Stavros Macrakis wrote: >> >> On Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 12:27 AM, Dominick Samperi < >>> djsamp...@earthlink.net <mailto:djsamp...@earthlink.net>> wrote: >>> >>> Stavros Macrakis wrote: >>> >>> That said, as a matter of courtesy and clarity, I'd think that >>> a fork should use a different name. >>> >>> Yes, the point is that this is not a legal or technical matter, it >>> is a matter of professional courtesy. >>> >>> I take this as one vote for the name change. >>> >>> >>> The naming and maintenance history of this package (or these packages: >>> Rcpp and RcppTemplate) appears to be complicated, and I have no interest in >>> becoming an arbitrator or voter in what is a dispute between you and other >>> implementers. >>> >>> On US copyright law, this should not be confused with "copyright" >>> notices that appear in GPL >>> source code. Remember that these are really "copyleft" notices, >>> and copyleft is designed to >>> protect the rights of copiers, not original contributors. >>> >>> >>> The copyright notice is a correct and legally valid copyright notice. The >>> GPL (copyleft) is the copyright *license*. Like all licenses, it defines >>> the relationship between authors and copiers. The GPL explicitly avoided >>> the so-called "obnoxious BSD advertising clause", which has requirements >>> about giving credit. >>> >>> -s >>> >>> >> > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > ______________________________________________ > R-devel@r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel > ______________________________________________ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
