[SciPy-User] Central File Exchange for SciPy

[Joshua Holbrook]

Keep in mind, one may always start by insisting on BSD licensing and
see how it goes, then add GPL options later.

--Josh

On Mon, Nov 1, 2010 at 11:30 AM, Matthew Brett <matthew.brett at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
>>> My personal opinion is that in the long run, it would be beneficial to
>>> have this 'file exchange' have BSD-only code (or public domain, since
>>> employees of the US Federal government as far as I understand must
>>> publish their codes under public domain terms).
>>
>> The flip side of this is that there are many environments in which the
>> distinction between GPL and BSD is irrelevant, eg for code we deploy
>> internally at work and do not distribute.  Suppose someone writes some
>> really nifty code that depends on pygsl.  I would rather have access
>> to it on the file exchange than not.  If the code submission dialogs
>> has a choice of licenses with BSD as the default, and selection of
>> non-BSD takes them to an explanation of why we prefer BSD and an "are
>> you sure" dialog, then including this code is beneficial in my view.
>
> The risk is that people will tend to pick up code snippets from the
> file exchange and paste them into their own code.   It will be very
> easy for them to accidentally pick up GPL code and accidentally
> relicense, leading to a viral licensing mess.
>
> If we do go down that route, can I suggest that the pages for the GPL
> code snippets have nice red flashing graphics either side saying
> 'warning - please be aware that including any part of this code in
> your code means that all your code has to be GPL'.
>
> See you,
>
> Matthew
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