On Oct 14, 2006, at 15:22 , William Stein wrote:
> > William Stein said: >>> This was one very concrete thing I got out of the SAGE >>> foundation discussion on Sunday -- people want to keep the >>> copyright of the work they submit to SAGE, just like some >>> people do with the Linux kernel. > > Bill Page replied: >> Yes. Personally I think this is a poor choice. They do not seem >> to realize how difficult this might make it in the future to >> incorporate their work into software with different licensing >> conditions. :-( This sort of copyright policy is what prevents >> the Aldor program from being licensed as open source right now. > > Since you think it is a poor choice, I better respond. > My impression is that in fact the SAGE developers who want > to keep copyright do understand "how difficult this might make > it in the future to incorporate their work into software with > different licensing conditions." In fact, that difficulty > is precisely what they want. A major reason they are motivated > and willing to contribute their code to SAGE (under the GPL), is > that they know beyond a doubt that their work can never be > incorporated into a commercial product, (etc.), even if I > totally sold out and tried to do so. Part of Bill's comment deals with the mixing of copyright policy. We've just finished dealing with the impact of mixing policies (Singular/omalloc), so it's pretty clear why this is A Bad Thing. On the other hand, I think mixing "BSD-like" and GPL isn't inherently bad (unless you are either a BSD or a GPL bigot). Of course, my legal training is a bit weak, so I can't be sure. There are a lot of murky areas here, so perhaps as part of setting up the SAGE Foundation, 'we' could deal with a lawyer who knows about this kind of stuff. One thing to consider, individually, is the question of the code you contribute, embodying an algorithm that you think up, could be something you want to capitalize on at a later time. I don't know what the issues are in this case, but it's worth a second thought. Justin (who doesn't want to be a lawyer) -- Justin C. Walker, Curmudgeon-At-Large Institute for the Enhancement of the Director's Income -------- Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want. -------- --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://sage.scipy.org/sage/ and http://modular.math.washington.edu/sage/ -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
