[Developers] ADMB-IDE licensing

[anders at nielsensweb.org]

Hi Arni,

I second that!

Cheers,

Anders.

> Arni -
> You clearly have educated yourself well on these matters. I look forward
> to giving your IDE a try.
> Thanks for efforts.
> John
>
> Arni Magnusson wrote:
>> All right, here are some references I have found regarding licensing
>> of aggregates that include GPL components. I'm assuming everyone on
>> developers at admb-project.org is interested in how these things work,
>> and I'm also hoping that some of you understand this better than I do.
>> Please let me know if your interpretation of the licenses differs from
>> mine.
>>
>>
>> [1] https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-help/2006-May/106245.html
>>
>> The dicussion following the GPL licensing of glmmADMB highlights the
>> main issue, even though ADMB has gone open source since that discussion.
>>
>> ADMB uses BSD to allow users to release models as proprietary
>> executables. When this is done, it must be made clear to all
>> recipients that they are not allowed to bundle that executable inside
>> a GPL package. Any package user can then insist to have the source
>> code for the executable, so it would lose its proprietary status.
>>
>> An important question is whether ADMB users are allowed to bundle BSD
>> executables inside a GPL package. The knee-jerk response is no, but
>> I'm not so sure. If glmmADMB is released as a GPL package today, then
>> R users have the right to see, modify, and share source code - meaning
>> the TPL and C++ code, even of ADMB itself. What they cannot is to
>> alter the BSD license of that model (since it does not call R), much
>> less of ADMB itself.
>>
>> This is walking on a thin line that we need to understand fully. What
>> is your understanding of this issue? This is not relevant for
>> ADMB-IDE, by the way, as shown below.
>>
>>
>> [2] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#MereAggregation
>>
>> The ADMB-IDE installer is an aggregate, distributing separate programs
>> together in one installer archive. The GPL permits me to create and
>> distribute an aggregate, even when the licenses of the other software
>> are non-free or GPL-incompatible.
>>
>> The only condition is that I cannot release the installer under a
>> license that prohibits users from exercising rights that each
>> program's individual license would grant them. This means that ADMB,
>> GCC, and Emacs must include their original licence text inside each
>> directory.
>>
>>
>> [3] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLCompatInstaller
>>
>> The license of the installation software does affect the installed
>> components, any more than a zip file would.
>>
>>
>> [4] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#NonFreeTools
>>
>> Which programs you use to edit the source code, or to compile it, or
>> study it, or record it, usually makes no difference for issues
>> concerning the licensing of that source code. In other words, it's
>> nobody's business whether you use Emacs with ADMB-IDE, Notepad, diff,
>> Visual C++, or any other other programs to work with ADMB code.
>>
>>
>> [5] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#CanIUseGPLToolsForNF
>>
>> Using Emacs, GCC, or other GPL programs to write and compile code does
>> not place any license restrictions on the code or executables.
>>
>>
>> [5] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLModuleLicense
>>
>> My admb-mode and .emacs components call Emacs and therefore need to be
>> GPL-compatible. Potential licenses include GPL, LGPL, and BSD.
>>
>>
>> [6] http://opensource.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html#section4
>>
>> GPL legalese, saying that my distribution of Emacs and GCC is called
>> "conveying verbatim copies". The original license text should be
>> intact inside their directories.
>>
>>
>> [7] http://opensource.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html#section5
>>
>> GPL legalese, where the last paragraph rephrases item [2].
>>
>>
>> [8] http://opensource.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html#section6
>>
>> GPL legalese, where option 6b says I should indicate where GCC and
>> Emacs can be downloaded in source code form. That's
>> ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/ and ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gcc/.
>>
>> ---
>>
>> In short, it looks like I can distribute the simple click'n'go
>> installer, where each component has its own license. I don't think it
>> really matters which GPL-compatible license I use for my admb-mode and
>> .emacs (BSD, GPL, LGPL), so I guess I'll go for BSD to align them with
>> ADMB.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Arni
>> _______________________________________________
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>> Developers at admb-project.org
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>>
>
> --
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>
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