Re: [Cdk-devel] Wild idea: a GPL module?

[Egon W. <eg...@us...>]

On Saturday 26 June 2004 10:40, Joerg Wegner wrote:
> > I've been pondering about writing a Gasteiger charges calculator, which
> > I would like to use for a Jmol plugin.
> > But JOELib already has a Gasteiger plugin... so why rewrite it? Without
> > the expert systems under CDK you will get problems anyway.
> > But with getting CDK a full blown library I was also thinking about a
> > native
> > 1. an implementation from scratch (i.e. article)
> > 2. a GPL port of Joerg's implementation (maybe of OELibs C++
> > implementation)
> > to CDK...
>
> 1. I've thought of it rewritting JOELib to JOELib2 (only for design
> purpose), but i've decided to do not. I've too much to do with students
> and project work, so i'm too busy to have time for such extensive
> refactorings. And what's the benefit, i've all functionality i need. Of
> course JOELib is hard to maintain and complex, but this works for me and
> for all of my students which tries to develop new algorithms.
> Eventually in the future there will time for such things. The design will
> not easy, but i think there is definitely room for an easier structure,
> which means not that it will get more simple, the opposite is the case. An
> easier interface will cause an even more complex internal structure if we
> are interested in speed also.
>
> 2. So, yes, you can use JOELib, but a simple 'GPL partial charge port' is
> not possible without using also the expert systems.

Mmmm... ok.

> If you use the calculation algorithm you will need also JOELib's chemistry
> kernel. 

With a linux and SVM in my mind, I'm totally confused what a 'kernel' really 
is... So two questions:

1. what's a kernel in general?
2. what's a chemistry kernel as in JOELib?

> So you will need JOELib as complete library and here we face the 
> licensing problems 

I don't see that as a problem, more as a choice... if I want to use something 
that is GPL, then I choose the derivative to be GPL too...

Ok, thanx very much for you thoughts...

Egon

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