PanoTools:
Re: copyright violation?
Rik Littlefield 2004-Sep-13 07:20:17
For what little it's worth, I personally agree with almost everything
that Valient and Yuv have written here.
I disagree, however, with Yuv's recommendation against LGPL.
I personally feel that LGPL is the only justifiable option at this
time.
The case for GPL would be strong *if* Professor Dersch himself had
from the beginning complied with its terms.
But as I understand it, the source codes for Professor Dersch's
versions of PTStitcher and PTOptimizer were never released. So it
seems that either Prof.Dersch did not really intend for the full
power of the GPL to apply to pano12.dll, or perhaps (a fantasy, OK?)
his PTStitcher and PTOptimizer programs actually relied on some
pano12.dll look-alike that was in fact not covered by the GPL.
Either situation puts the GUI's in a formally defensible position, at
least to the extent that they are able to operate through the
PTStitcher and PTOptimizer released by Prof.Dersch, which seem pretty
clearly *not* GPL'd. It's great that the GUI's also happen to be
able to take advantage of some new features of modified GPL'd code,
but that's not intrinsic to their operation.
There is also, at least in the U.S., the concept that you cannot
knowingly allow infringement of copyright for many years, and then
suddenly complain about it. The GUI's have been available for quite
a long time now. How many people have complained, and who are they?
Personally, I am happy to pay my money to license the software that I
agreed to license, and I am happy to have contributed hundreds of
hours of volunteer work to enhance the codes that I understood to be
GPL'd.
Bottom line, it seems to me that pano12.dll has been effectively
treated as LGPL for something over 5 years now. I am fully
supportive of clarifying the formal licensing to protect the sanctity
of the GPL and LGPL terms, which I believe have had enormous benefit
to the computing community. But fair is fair -- there is a big
difference between formalizing the status quo, and changing the rules
on the fly.
--Rik
Disclaimer: I speak for no one else. Sometimes I don't even speak
correctly for myself.
--- In #removed#, "yuval_levy" <#removed#>
wrote:
> Very detailed and very clear.
>
> Indeed, the GPL is an "infective" license, whether the headers are
> linked or whether the core code is being modified, and is intended
> to be so.
> ...
> The last word on this is with Professor Dersch: if he does not
> release the PT under an alternative licence (which could be the
> LGPL, though I strongly recommend against it as the community
> and Professor Dersch would lose from this), then to be legally
> compliant the developers of PT based tools should publish their
> source code to comply with the GPL.
>
> Yuv
>
> --- In #removed#, Valient <#removed#> wrote:
> > For libraries that I'm happy to see used in commercial or closed-
> source
> > programs, I use the LGPL. And there is a difference.
> >
> > regards,
> > Valient
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
$9.95 domain names from Yahoo!. Register anything.
http://us.click.yahoo.com/J8kdrA/y20IAA/yQLSAA/.Cr1lB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PanoTools/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
#removed#
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/