RE: Gnuplot concerns

[Ray, W. N <wil...@lm...>]

I thank you for your time and effort in responding.  As I've said in a
previous response, we really enjoy your software and think highly of it,
however we must convince our legal council of the lack of liability,
especially after the whole SCO ordeal.  Your input is appreciated.

Robert Hard wrote:

"are you using pre-compiled gnuplot binaries?"

No, and it seems this will solve the majority of the problems that they
are having with the legal council.

"I am curious how you created this list. Many of the files you refer to
seem to contain the exact same text as the "Copyright" file. e.g. you
list all the terminal drivers as lacking a license, yet virtually all of
them do. In fact, I'm actually struggling to find any files in the
gnuplot source that you haven't listed as lacking a license."

One possible reason for this, as has recently been brought to my
attention is the "European" (as I was told) spelling of the word
license.  The tool that was used to check files did not check for the
word licence (note the c), only license.  So any files that had the
alternative spelling were marked as not having the information, my
apologies for overlooking that if that happens to be the case.

I thank you very much for your suggestions, and the time spent to
respond.  It is very well appreciated.

Regards,
Bill Ray


-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Hart [mailto:en...@no...] 
Sent: Tuesday, July 12, 2005 12:05 PM
To: Ray, William N
Cc: gnu...@li...
Subject: Re: Gnuplot concerns

On Mon, 2005-07-11 at 14:42 -0500, Ray, William N wrote:

> We currently use the Gnuplot package and we are quite pleased with it,
> but our legal council has recommended that we discontinue its use.  We
> have been advised the following problems need to be addressed before
> we can continue to use the tools Gnuplot provides.

are you using pre-compiled gnuplot binaries? if so, I'd have thought the
copyright method that appears at start up, and the "help license"
command is all you need worry about. Also if you are only using gnuplot
on a specific platform (e.g. windows) then many of the files you list
aren't relevant.

>      1. We need to have no more than 1 license covering files in any
>         one directory.  We have been advised against using software
>         with mismatched licensing.

Can you give specific examples of this problem? I vaguely remember
seeing some files licenses in *more permissive* ways than the standard
license - usually stating public domain - or explicitly dual licensing.
Isn't this quite common in open source software?
 
> There are currently 177 files without copyright information as well as
> 418 files without any licensing information.  Is there any
> possibility 

I am curious how you created this list. Many of the files you refer to
seem to contain the exact same text as the "Copyright" file. e.g. you
list all the terminal drivers as lacking a license, yet virtually all of
them do. In fact, I'm actually struggling to find any files in the
gnuplot source that you haven't listed as lacking a license.

> that this information may be added to the files in the next release?  

Any genuine problems that can be cleaned up should be cleaned up.
However, this could require a great deal of work, and it is most likely
to get done if you do as much of it as possible yourself. Note that this
may well require contacting original authors of individual files, and
seeking their permission.

Rob

-- 
Robert Hart <en...@no...>
University of Nottingham


This message has been checked for viruses but the contents of an
attachment
may still contain software viruses, which could damage your computer
system:
you are advised to perform your own checks. Email communications with
the
University of Nottingham may be monitored as permitted by UK
legislation.