[SciPy-User] Central File Exchange for SciPy

[Jochen Schröder]

On 31/10/10 06:00, Almar Klein wrote:
>
>     I would strongly recommend (to users) that all shorter code, snippets
>     and recipes, are BSD by default or made explicit by the user, and that
>     the license is very easy to see on the web page.
>     Given that we are writing BSD code and to avoid any conflicts, I
>     essentially ignore all non-BSD code, for example on the matlab file
>     exchange.
>
>
> Hear hear! Since most Python code is BSD licensed, a module/package
> using non-BSD compatible license (for example GLP) would be incompatible
> with, well almost all Python code. This may sound trivial, but I, for
> one, did not fully understand this until someone explained it.
>
> I would even go so far as to force a BSD license for all code hosted on
> the site itself. Referenced code can then still choose a license. At the
> very least there should be a proper explanation that people should chose
> the BSD license in most cases, and *why*.
>
>    Almar

Let me first say that I love your idea and the enthusiasm you've already 
created.

However I really take issue with the above statement and the notion of 
forcing a specific OSS licence choice onto users. First your statement 
above is factually not correct: GPL is a BSD compatible licence (in the 
usual meaning of this phrase), i.e. you can include BSD code in a GPL 
project. You can also do otherwise, however then your project 
effectively becomes GPL.
Secondly, the argument that most Python code is already BSD, one could 
just as well make the argument that most OSS code is GPL so use GPL.
Furthermore your argument also ignores the fact that if you're using 
(ctypes, cython) wrappers around C-code you will probably be bound by 
the licence of the C-library so some code might not have a choice.

Finally the biggest problem I have is with the notion that forcing a 
specific OSS choice onto developers is ok. If someone chooses a licence, 
they have a reason to do so and it is their choice. The funny thing is 
that the "free software crowd", often gets accused of this, however I've 
found that often the BSD crowd is a lot worse, and often quite hostile 
towards GPL licensing. Anyway I don't want to start a licence flamewar.

Now a option to restrict search to common OSS licences I'm all for that!

Cheers
Jochen
>
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>
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