incompatible licences and other issues

[Matthias Munnich]

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Dear all:

Maybe one should regard the appearance of such an email as a compliment to
GrADS. It is important enough, that somebody took the time to check the
copyrights of all files! However, as Hoop pointed out, this person does not
appear to have any kind of authority to speak on such matters.

Had he studied the sources more carefully, he would have noticed that I
shamefully, i.e., without giving proper credit :), copied the copyright
information from the GD library into gxeps.c.  GD is distributed by many Linux
distro's, like RedHat, Mandriva or Debian.  If these distro's feel it is GPL
compatible -- and they presumable have lawyers at hand -- so should you.

In any case, as the author and copyright holder of gxeps,  I assure everybody
that in my view, COLA is giving proper credit by a) listing me as a contributor
of GrADS in the documentation on their web site and by b) not removing my name
or the copyright info from the gxeps source.

With regards to gxgif: If Hoop's gasdf.c has any kind of odor, gxgif surely
stinks like rotten fish. If is unsupported and buggy. Still, some people like to
have it around. It is for these that COLA is distributing it.  Yes, there is no
copyright info in gxgif.c.  It has been distributed for years without bothering
about such legalese.  I presume that it is therefore in public domain but if
this is not enough I hereby declare it to be in public domain.  Thus, you may
whatever you want with it, e.g., remove my name. Incidentally, this may help me
in having to answer fewer support requests. :)

Gd13gif.c is  copied from the GD image library version 1.3. Since the lzw
patents expired, it should be fine to use it.

Mike Fiorino may chip in about LATS. The current copyright may indeed make it
difficult for 3rd parties to redistribute GrADS. So what? COLA has permission to
distribute LATS. Anybody else may have to contact the authors before doing so.

Matt


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
>
>

- --
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Matthias Munnich
UC Los Angeles, IGPP & Dep. of Atmos. and Ocean. Sc.
Ph: +1-310-794 5899; Fax: +1-310-206 3051
GPG: 1024D/1FDC7E16 A739 6A48 7E62 244B 836A  D119 89D6 834E 1FDC 7E16
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