incompatible licences and other issues

[Jean Pierre Arabonis]

I can't believe this !!!!! this is a help list for people who work on
real problems, not amateur lawyers - go get a life and let us continue
our work in peace.
    JP

Patrice Dumas wrote:

>Hi,
>
>Some issues with grads:
>
>1) Incompatible licences
>
>First of all you should stop distributing lats as the licence is not
>compatible with the GPL.
>
>You shouldn't distribute gxeps.c either as there is an
>advertising clause incompatible with the GPL
>"Credit must be given in user-accessible documentation".
>
>Same for gxhpng.c because there is no licence statement so the code
>appears to be proprietary.
>
>2) include of .c files in gxmeta.c
>
>If this changes, then you really shouldnt include gxeps.c in gxmeta.c.
>Similarly I don't think it is a good idea to include gxhpng.c in
>gxmeta.c.
>
>3) gxgif.c
>
>The code of is file is very strange however it is unused. It really should
>be taken out from the distribution, it is very questionnable regarding
>copyright to have many copyrights and licences in one file.
>
>4) gd13gif.c and associated files
>
>They seem to come from somewhere gd. What is very strange is that gd is
>used... These codes and files shouldn't be included in grads, and if they
>are really necessary they should be in a separate directory. Maybe the
>trouble comes from an issue with lzw patents? In that case the past
>grads code may have been illegal. This patent is now in the public
>domain and it seems to me that lzw support is back in gd. If my analysis
>is right a newer version of gd should be used.
>
>5) zlib.h not included
>
>Another strange thing is that compress is used although zlib.h isn't
>included anywhere. This also seems wrong to me.
>
>--
>Pat
>
>
>

--
Jean Pierre Arabonis
arabonis at egs.uct.ac.za
Tel 021 780 1021 cell 084 401 1365
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