[BioPython] Phylogeny tree plotting?

[Andrew Dalke]

Jan T. Kim wrote:
>On Wed, Apr 11, 2001 at 10:19:22AM -0400, Rick Ree wrote:
>> On Wed, 11 Apr 2001, Jan T. Kim wrote:
>> I was
>> concerned about the license issue, too (I prefer GPL), but I'm over it
now
>> :)
>
>This is a significant point; I have to admit that I didn't think about
>it so far. Generally, I share the preference for the GPL. Are there
>reasons against using it?

See the endless debates on the BSD license (which is very much
like the Python license) vs. the GPL.

First two hits fom a Google search for: "BSD license" "GPL"
are:
http://www.softpanorama.org/OSS/bsd_vs_gpl.shtml
http://librenix.com/?inode=22

I happen to prefer the BSD style more because my view of
writing good software is to save other people time and
effort, and if they choose not to use a package because
of license restrictions, then they waste time rewriting
the code anew.

Others prefer GPL because they agree with that belief -
if all software is GPL'ed then all distributed code can be
used as the base for new work thus saving a lot of time.
Some also prefer GPL because they see it as way to prevent
a company from being "unethical" and use the case of
RasMol vs. Chime as an example.  (Sorry, can't find a good
link for this.)

I also think most bio software is used in-house or in
servers, and with rather little distribution of packages
(at least so far) so the use of GPL v. BSD doesn't
really come into play.

Finally, as a consultant I work on people's in-house
proprietary code.  If I accidentally include some bit of
code I learned about from GPL software, then I taint their
code base.  Although they may not want to sell their
code now, it may have unforseen consequences for the
future.  This is also why I try to implement biopython
code first before looking at, say, what bioperl does.

Paranoia-will-get-you-everywhere-ly yr's

                    Andrew
                    dalke@acm.org