On Sunday 15 October 2006 00:22, 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. > > SAGE developers -- what do you all think?
It's not a "commercial product" but a proprietary product which is ruled illegal by the GPL. I am legally allowed to start a SAGE consulting business (this would change if there was a trademark on SAGE I would need a license for that name then) which e.g. would charge schools to setup a SAGE server there and provided notebooks matching the stuff the kids have to learn etc.. I'm not even sure If e.g. some non-free software MartinMath would be allowed to use SAGE via a pseudo-tty (like we do with Singular) as this MartinMath thing wouldn't technically link to SAGE (but IANAL). But concerning your question: Yes, I want that code I contribute stays free both as in free-speech (<insert math should be verifiable argument here>) and in free-beer (< insert that-drove-me-to-SAGE-in-the-first-place>). I definitely don't want to hand over copyright but I'm not sure if I'm totally opposed to sharing the copyright (as I do with you - William - IIRC anyway) with some to-be-founded foundation at some point. my five cents, Martin -- name: Martin Albrecht _pgp: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x8EF0DC99 _www: http://www.informatik.uni-bremen.de/~malb _icq: 177334829 _jab: [EMAIL PROTECTED] --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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/ -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
