Re: Thoughts about gnuplot license and copyrights

[Petr M. <mi...@ph...>]

> Therefore I ask that any modifications be contributed back to the
> primary source tree, and/or be distributed as patches to it.  That
> way everyone gets the benefit of external additions or development,
> but they are also guaranteed to receive the original source and
> modifications to it

(La)TeX community has also such a kind of license: do whatever you want with 
my code, but never call it the same if you distribute modified versions.

(I vaguely remember a rumour that Debian had troubles even with D.E.Knuth's 
license of TeX -- after he's gone, the version is set to pi and no 
modification is allowed -- but that would be too hard decision not to allow 
to package TeX for license religious reasons.)

> But yes, it is a real problem if the original rights holder[s] to such
> a work go missing or inactive.  My only answer to that is a hope
> that, at least in the case of scientific software, any person who
> cared enough about the code to set those terms in the first place
> also cares enough to eventually hand on the torch to someone
> else so that both the project itself and the quality-control mechanism
> continues on into the future.

Sourceforge is full of dead projects -- once the main author disappears, 
others have not enough rights to continue.

> They stop short of authorizing forks, although the distinction between
> a modification and a fork is rather vague.
>
> Perhaps Thomas Williams would be willing to authorize periodic
> releases by the cvs development team, while retaining veto power?

>    I have great sympathy for the current gnuplot license, but
> I agree that somehow we need to negotiate a guarantee that
> the code can continue to be developed, and that there is some
> mechanism in the future for anointing "official" release versions
> on which subsequent patches are based.

That would be fine. Gnuplot developers (defined to be those having right to 
contribute to cvs) would be approved to continue gnuplot development, 
support and releases. TW could veto it. If he disappears, the development 
goes further. That would guarantee gnuplot could still be developed in 15 
years, whoever is doing that.

Isn't there already some kind of this "semi-free" license already in use?

---
PM