[SciPy-dev] bvls license

[Robert Kern]

On Wed, Mar 5, 2008 at 10:00 AM, Alan Isaac <aisaac at american.edu> wrote:
> On Wed, 27 Feb 2008, dmitrey wrote:
>  > http://lib.stat.cmu.edu/general/bvls
>
>  OK, here is the situation.  It turns out that
>  BVLS was previously released under GPL v.2 to the R project.
>  The authors are happy to have it available under that license.
>
>  However, they also appear willing to consider LGPL and
>  possibly BSD if that would be helpful.  I would need to be
>  able to tell them how it would be helpful.  Could someone
>  better versed in SciPy/licenses interactions help here?
>
>  This is what I think.
>
>  GPL code can be used in SciKits but not in SciPy proper.
>  If so, is it desirable/important that this code be available in SciPy proper?

Sure. Even if it is just used in OpenOpt, OpenOpt would also benefit
from it being BSD-licensed.

>  Finally, one author added the following statement:
>
>     "I would be happy to license it under anything that
>     keeps attribution to Bob and me and that keeps the code
>     intact."
>
>  I do not really know what this means.  The GPL itself makes
>  no commitment to keep the code "intact", right?  Can
>  I address this concern in any way?

You will have to ask them exactly what they mean by that. Inform them
that both the GPL and BSD licenses require attribution, but both also
allow licensees to distribute modified code.

-- 
Robert Kern

"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless
enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as
though it had an underlying truth."
  -- Umberto Eco