[Biopython-dev] Code review request for phyloxml branch

[Jaime Huerta Cepas]

Hey! Sorry, It was not my intention to open a flame about licences nor to
sound rude. I apologize if I did.



>  As far as I know, the main difference between GPL and BSD-like licenses is
>> that, with the second, you could relicense the code at any moment under any
>> other policy, including private and close licenses.
>>
>
>
> This is not true. None of the open-source licenses that I'm aware of allows
> anyone to relicense code under a license that is less liberal, or to
> relicense code at all. It is the copyright owner who can relicense code, not
> the distributor.
>
> I'm not an expert on software licences, so I can not enter into this issue
very deeply.  What I said in my previous email is what I could understand
from these info: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html,
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html#Non-CopyleftedFreeSoftware
If I was wrong and modified BSD-like sources cannot be relicensed under
other less liberal licenses, then we will kindly consider a change of the
ETE license in the future.


> One of the differences between GPL and BSD is that GPL is viral.
> Specifically, code that links to GPL-licensed code must also be GPL-licensed
> *when it is distributed.*
>
> (It is a common misconception that GPL is unconditionally viral. I can take
> GPL code and link to it and keep my code closed source for as long as I
> please if I never redistribute it. GPL was written with software vendors in
> mind, whose business consists of distributing software for commercial gain.
> GPL has therefore sometimes been called anti-commercial. This is wrong, too,
> but I won't go into the details here.)
>
I see, so the only problem is about distribution...


Biopython can freely utilize GPL-licensed (or closed source, for that
> matter) software if it doesn't link to it. IANAL but I think it can also
> redistribute GPL-licensed code along with Biopython so long as Biopython
> doesn't link to it, and it is made clear that some of the distribution falls
> under a different license than BSD. (Linux distributions mix BSD and GPL
> software, too.)
>
Yes, I agree. This is what I meant as biopython addons. With this in mind,
biopython could be aware of many other software out there and benefit from
it. Is there any work around this in bipython?


As for ETE itself, a BSD/MIT style license seems to be the by far most
> widely used license for Python modules. If you want to facilitate adoption
> of the software as a library by other programmers, GPL is going to stand in
> the way of that. Also, really all that you are accomplishing with GPL is
> that a software company can't take advantage of ETE. Is that your chief
> concern?

Well, our intention was that code based on ETE sources  (other tools or
improvements) were distrubuted/published also as free software. We wanted
also to leave an open door to use other GPL software from ETE.


> GPL won't prevent any scientific lab from writing closed source code that
> builds on ETE and publishing the results, so long as they don't distribute
> their closed source code.

Yes. You are right. We don't want to avoid this.

In any case, thanks for your comments. I will try to get more info about
what you say and, if we have to modify something, we do it. :)

cheers,
Jaime





>
>
>        -hilmar
> --
> ===========================================================
> : Hilmar Lapp  -:-  Durham, NC  -:-  hlapp at gmx dot net :
> ===========================================================
>
>
>
>


-- 
=========================
Jaime Huerta-Cepas, Ph.D.
CRG-Centre for Genomic Regulation
Doctor Aiguader, 88
PRBB Building
08003 Barcelona, Spain
http://www.crg.es/comparative_genomics
=========================