[bip] changing the Pygr license?

[Brandon King]

GPL: It's infectious so MOST software development company's won't touch 
any GPL'd code, or they will use it internally and you'll never see any 
changes.

LGPL: Only infectious to changes made to your code (forced release of 
changes to your package only). Commercial products can use your code in 
commercial products as long as they release any changes they made to the 
LGPL'd code. At this point, companys that are afraid to use open source 
software or don't understand the LGPL won't use it.

BSD: Someone could fork your project, make improvements and sell them 
without releasing changes back to your original code. (Worse case 
scenario; nothing in the license prevents people from contributing back 
to your project if they want to.)

Q&A:

Do you want companys to be able to incorporate your software into any of 
there packages? If yes, no to GPL. (They could use it, but they likely 
won't use your code).

Do you want changes made to pygr to be released to the public? If yes, 
GPL or LGPL.

Do you want changes made to pygr to be released to the public, but be 
usable in commercial products without having to license it from you? If 
yes, LGPL.

Do you want the most number of people (with many packages, this 
determines if the package lives or dies), including companys to be able 
to use your code and possibly make improvements they might/might not 
share? If yes, BSD.

Do you want companys to only use your software if they pay for a license 
to use your code in a commercial product? If yes, GPL and commercial 
license. This gets complicated if anyone makes changes to your code as 
they have copyright, unless they have to turn over the copyright when 
they submit a patch, in which case you end up loosing patches you might 
have gotten in the first place.

In my opinion, python bioinformatics code needs to be usable to as many 
users as possible if we are going to compete against other languages. In 
this case I would recommend BSD, but if you want to force patches to 
come back to pygr, LGPL would be ok (although you will loose some 
potential users compared with a BSD license). GPL seems too limiting in 
this case because people are likely to integrate pygr into other useful 
packages... and since many people don't want their code to be GPL'd, 
they will not use pygr in their project.

I hope that helps.

-Brandon King

Bruce Southey wrote:
> Hi,
> IANAL and I am also assuming you are the sole copyright owner
> otherwise this is a moot point. It is your code and consequently your
> decision only on the license.
>
> I don't share the view that GPL v2 is a bad choice and that the BSD
> would be better. I do prefer the GPL v2 over the BSD. While I don't
> think the GPL v2 is as good as it should be it is at least understood
> and respected (to a large degree even given the busybox lawsuit). I
> definitely do not agree with GPL v3, if for no other reason than it is
> incompatible with GPL v2.
>
> If you do not care about how you code is used and you do not care if
> people don't send you
> fixes then the BSD is the way to go. It also means you can not
> complain if your code ends up elsewhere (like windows, mac OS) and
> what happens to it. However,  the GPLv2 is a suitable license if you
> do care or want fixes.
>
> I don't see how choosing the GPL v2 over the BSD makes it limiting to
> other users. If people really want to include into their distributed
> product then you can dual-license it to them under appropriate terms
> (again assuming you are the sole copyright owner of the code).
>
> Regards
> Bruce
>
> On 9/20/07, Christopher Lee <leec at chem.ucla.edu> wrote:
>   
>> Based on feedback from a number of people who felt that the GPL
>> license was too limiting, I'm thinking of changing the Pygr license
>> from GPL to BSD, but would first like to get people's advice about
>> what they think would be the best license to use.  I only used GPL
>> originally because it seemed to be what people favored at the time.
>> If people now feel that GPL is too restrictive, we can change the
>> license.  In my view, the main purpose of the license is just to
>> ensure that the software is as useful as possible to people, within a
>> reasonable set of assumptions about sharing and attribution.   Based
>> on the discussion on this group, it sounds like people prefer BSD.
>>
>> I'd be very grateful for comments on this proposed change...
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> Chris
>> http://www.bioinformatics.ucla.edu/leelab
>> http://www.bioinformatics.ucla.edu/pygr
>>
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