[SciPy-dev] [Fwd: Re: license status of your code on netlib]

[Robin]

At the risk of deviating off topic - while we're talking about
licenses I was wondering if I could solicit some opinions.

In my academic area there is a move towards groups releasing toolkits
and packages for use by the wider community, and most of these refer
to it as 'open source', but they are usually distributed under strange
licenses. Some examples:

http://find.bccn.uni-freiburg.de/?n=Main.License
http://neurodatabase.org/src/license/
http://www.ibtb.org/Home/toolbox-downloads#currentversion
http://www.nest-initiative.org/index.php/Software:License

I guess I wondered what people thought about this. I'm looking for
convincing arguments for people to stick to standard open source
licenses where possible. I think the general impression from the above
is that in most cases GPL would be more suitable than BSD - since they
specifically want to prevent commercial exploitation. But what do
people suggest about the citation clauses and things like that?

What happens in other fields? (I assume this problem must also have
occurred there)

Cheers

Robin