Dear All, I develop a desktop program for simulation of effects of government policies over agricultural systems (http://www.regmas.org).
I am concerned with the fact that the GPLv3 do not protect RegMAS from abuses of usage, modification, production of new models/results without corresponding release of source code that lead to such results. My main concern is that academic experiments should be transparent and repetable, something that currently do not happen in my field of studyies.
So I developed RegMAS. Conceptually I am very close to the "Software as a service" where the software is used to produce services or products rather than to be sold/distribuited. Hovewer I am in the filed of desktop usage and "traditional" way of deliver the product/service, rather than in the "network" domain.
May I still use the Affero licence? Is out there a licence (compatible with the GPLv2, as I am using Qt and glpk) that is similar to the Affero one but without the "network" limitation ??
The alternative is the Creative Common Attribution-Share Alike 3.0, even if I would not require attribution. The important for me is that Free software remain Free.
Would the CC licence be compatible with the GPL v 2 ???
Kind regards, Antonello Lobianco
Hi Antonello
Antonello Lobianco wrote:
May I still use the Affero licence? Is out there a licence (compatible with the GPLv2, as I am using Qt and glpk) that is similar to the Affero one but without the "network" limitation ??
From the outline you provided, it sounds like you are interested in
something like GPLv2 + additional term. That would be vanilla GPLv2 incompatible. This is because Section 6 of the licence expressly disallows additional terms to be applied to vanilla GPL code: "You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein." http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html
Perhaps the key lies in defining what you wish to accomplish. I am surprised that academic experiments in your field are not transparent and repeatable. In each field of studies it is usually a prerequisite that researchers describe methodology. Indeed, the use of any scientific research that cannot be replicated and expanded by third parties has limited scope. Verification and peer review is almost impossible in such cases.
This may not be a licensing issue per se but rather an issue of field publication best practice.
I hope this helps. If you have further questions you can email the FTF directly at ftf@fsfeurope.org
Regards
Shane
On Mon, 2007-12-03 at 16:17 +0100, Shane Martin Coughlan wrote:
Antonello Lobianco wrote:
May I still use the Affero licence? Is out there a licence (compatible with the GPLv2, as I am using Qt and glpk) that is similar to the Affero one but without the "network" limitation ??
From the outline you provided, it sounds like you are interested in something like GPLv2 + additional term. That would be vanilla GPLv2 incompatible.
It would also stop being free software, unless I'm missing something.
Whether you agree with the AGPL or not, it's a hack put in place because a user is never the recipient of a copy of (e.g.) a web app. If you have a copy of a free app, you're free to use and modify it however you please without having to redistribute it.
As you point out, the GPLv2 incompatibility rules this out on practical grounds anyway.
Cheers,
Alex.
Thanks for the reply.. I am not in the law domain but if I undestood correcty you claim that a licence of the software like the GPL+clause of mandatory redistribution of source code in case of redistribution of products/services ("results") obtained with a modified version of the software woult it make the software not only GPLv3 incompatible but also would make it not being "free software" ?
Which of the basic "freedoms" would it be broked ?
I spent only few days in this matters, but I understood that a licence is compatible when the additional code add a restriction (eg. LGPL->GPL) and is uncompatible in the opposite case.. or am I going to simple ??
thanks, Antonello
On lunedì 3 dicembre 2007, Alex Hudson wrote:
It would also stop being free software, unless I'm missing something.
Whether you agree with the AGPL or not, it's a hack put in place because a user is never the recipient of a copy of (e.g.) a web app. If you have a copy of a free app, you're free to use and modify it however you please without having to redistribute it.
As you point out, the GPLv2 incompatibility rules this out on practical grounds anyway.
Cheers,
Alex.
On Tue, 2007-12-04 at 09:44 +0100, Antonello Lobianco wrote:
Thanks for the reply.. I am not in the law domain but if I undestood correcty you claim that a licence of the software like the GPL+clause of mandatory redistribution of source code in case of redistribution of products/services ("results") obtained with a modified version of the software woult it make the software not only GPLv3 incompatible but also would make it not being "free software" ?
Yeah. The AGPL is a special case, because it enforces distribution in a scenario where users would never ordinarily have access to a copy of the software. In the desktop software case, users would always have access to a copy.
To tie the use of the software into forced redistribution would be an invasion of privacy to my mind, e.g.:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#CanIDemandACopy
Which of the basic "freedoms" would it be broked ?
The right to use the software, for any purpose. We've never accepted restrictions on that (before AGPL).
I spent only few days in this matters, but I understood that a licence is compatible when the additional code add a restriction (eg. LGPL->GPL) and is uncompatible in the opposite case.. or am I going to simple ??
That's too simple.
The GPL says explicitly that you may not add further restrictions; that's how the copyleft works.
Licenses are only compatible if you can obey both of them simultaneously. In the case of GPL and GPL+restriction, you wouldn't be able to obey the original GPL, so they would be incompatible.
Cheers,
Alex.