incompatible licences and other issues

[Mike Fiorino]

Dear Matt,

I agree with your sentiments and feel that my contributions to the grads
source (e.g., galats) have been adequately acknowledged; the lats copyright
statement is included with the lats* code; here is the standard legal from
the lats distribution; when it was distributed out of llnl (it's no longer
available from the our web site)

ftp://sprite.llnl.gov/pub/fiorino/grads/COPYRIGHT
and
ftp://sprite.llnl.gov/pub/fiorino/grads/DISCLAIMER

note that grads source was distributed with lats and how we specifically say
that our copyright statement does not cover grads source...

Best /R Mike

> -----Original Message-----
> From: GRADSUSR at LIST.CINECA.IT
> [mailto:GRADSUSR at LIST.CINECA.IT] On Behalf Of Matthias Munnich
> Sent: Monday, September 19, 2005 12:53 PM
> To: GRADSUSR at LIST.CINECA.IT
> Subject: Re: incompatible licences and other issues
>
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> Hash: SHA1
>
> 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
> >
> >
>
> - --
> ======================================================================
> 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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