[Developers] ADMB-IDE licensing

[John Sibert]

Hi Arni,

You are trying to make an important and constructive contribution to the 
ADMB project. Unfortunately, Richard Stallman and the Free Software 
Foundation, want things done in very specific way (as I said, it all 
seems like a dispute between religions to me) and have turned the emacs 
license to be a really intimidating document. From 
http://www.free-soft.org/gpl_history/emacs_gpl.html
>
> 3. You may copy and distribute GNU Emacs (or a portion or derivative 
> of it, under Paragraph 2) in object code or executable form under the 
> terms of Paragraphs 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the 
> following:
>
> - accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source 
> code, which must be distributed under the terms of Paragraphs 1 and 2 
> above; or,
>
> - accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, 
> to give any third party free (except for a nominal shipping charge) a 
> complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be 
> distributed under the terms of Paragraphs 1 and 2 above; or,
>
> - accompany it with the information you received as to where the 
> corresponding source code may be obtained. (This alternative is 
> allowed only for non commercial distribution and only if you received 
> the program in object code or executable form alone.)
>
> For an executable file, complete source code means all the source code 
> for all modules it contains; but, as a special exception, it need not 
> include source code for modules which are standard libraries that 
> accompany the operating system on which the executable file runs.
>
> 4. You may not copy, sub license, distribute or transfer GNU Emacs 
> except as expressly provided under this License Agreement. Any attempt 
> otherwise to copy, sub license, distribute or transfer GNU Emacs is 
> void and your rights to use GNU Emacs under this License agreement 
> shall be automatically terminated. However, parties who have received 
> computer software programs from you with this License Agreement will 
> not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in 
> full compliance.
>
It looks to me like if you want to distribute the emacs executable, you 
also have to make the source code available. I suppose you could do 
that, but it would be giving users more than they really want and might 
make the whole package a bit bulky.

Can you create your package in such a way that it is the  end user's 
responsibility to correctly install emacs?

When you installed emacs, did you receive the source code?

John

Arni Magnusson wrote:
> Thanks, John and Dave, for your feedback.
>
>   
>> If you use emacs you probably immediately lose about 95% of the
>> world, including me.
>>     
>
> The idea behind my ADMB-IDE is to use Emacs with admb-mode as the engine,
> but the user interface is very different from the default Emacs. The
> keybindings are similar to the majority of editors, as listed on the last
> page in the manual draft (attached admb-ide.pdf). The manual is not quite
> ready, but it gives a decent overview.
>
> I hope that I won't lose potential users by using Emacs as the underlying
> engine. For me, Emacs Lisp is a general language with strong support for
> editing files. Much like S is a general language with strong support for
> statistical modelling. Both are rich, mature, and expressive. [Reminds me
> of a lady I once knew.]
>
>
>   
>> If you are distributing Emacs and GCC or any other GPL product, you
>> are obliged to license the whole thing as GPL, regardless of how
>> anything else is licensed.
>>     
>
> That's what I was worried about. One possible solution is to release
> ADMB-IDE in two Inno packages: GCC plus Emacs with hardwired target
> directories (GPL license), and ADMB plus my config files (BSD license).
>
>
>   
>> And your users may also be obliged to release whatever they create
>> with your software under a GPL license.
>>     
>
> I've seen messages on the web saying that applications compiled with GCC
> are not subject to GPL, but haven't found a definite reference. ADMB on
> Linux uses GCC, and my understanding is that ADMB applications are not
> subject to GPL.
>
> As for Emacs, I would find it hard to believe that everything I write
> becomes GPL. The same would then be true for Crimson, Gedit, jEdit, Kate,
> Nano, Notepad++, Scite, and all the other GPL editors. I hope users are
> also allowed to adjust the settings for syntax highlighting, compilation,
> and menu entries. It's hard to interpret the licensing legalese, but the
> ADMB development team needs to get a clear picture - perhaps with the aid
> of a lawyer, as you have mentioned earlier.
>
>
>   
>> That is why many people dislike GPL and why we chose BSD for ADMB.
>> It is a sort of religious struggle in the open source software
>> world. So I would hope that you could find a way to release your
>> package under BSD also.
>>     
>
> Roger that. Do you think the best solution is to release ADMB-IDE in two
> Inno installers, separating the components into BSD and GPL bundles? It's
> a shame if users can't enjoy my current click'n'go admb-ide-345-1.exe
> installer, but maybe that's just life.
>
> I wonder if I could then prepare a zip file containing the two installers,
> along with a tiny meta-installer script.
>
>
>   
>> You might want to verify the licenses on GCC and Emacs. As I recall,
>> GCC is released under LGPL (Lesser Gnu Public License). The LGPL may
>> be less restrictive than GPL, but the question has apparently never
>> been brought before a (United States) court.
>>
>> My advice would be not to include anything in your package
>> distributed under GPL. LGPL may be OK. So please check it.
>>     
>
> I tried to research this, but couldn't understand it very well. Any
> further feedback regarding licensing is much appreciated.
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> Arni
>   
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