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

[David Warde-Farley]

On 11-Sep-09, at 8:26 AM, Benny Malengier wrote:

> This is actually the nice thing about the viral aspect of GPL. When
> you start a new toolkit in your department by extending a GPL
> component, you can tell the legal department that you don't have the
> time to reimplement existing components (time pressure you know) so
> you extend a GPL one, and now your component _must_ also be GPL. For
> scipy this is more complicated, you must convince them you are better
> of contributing to the project, and people who don't know the issue
> have difficulty grasping the concept of this collaboration.

FWIW, I know the developers of several prominent BSD-licensed  
applications prefer BSD because they work for companies where their  
contracts stipulate that the company has a non-exclusive license to  
anything they create. Contributing to GPL software makes it much more  
complicated for their legal department, but the BSD license avoids  
that hurdle.

David