Re: [OctDev] [markespl@yahoo.com: Re: Reading netcdf files]

[Rafael L. <ra...@ic...>]

* Paul Kienzle <pki...@us...> [2001-11-05 15:15]:

> One problem I see is the following:
> 
> --------------------------------------------------
> Copyright 1993-1999 University Corporation for Atmospheric Research/Unidata
> 
> [...]
> software or in any product that includes this software. The names UCAR
>                                                                                       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> and/or Unidata, however, may not be used in any advertising or publicity
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> to endorse or promote any products or commercial entity unless specific
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> written permission is obtained from UCAR/Unidata. The user also
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> [...]

It's mostly fairly standard "keep our copyrights on the stuff, and
don't mess with the name of our Institution."  They are not requiring
permission for distribution.

At any rate, the netCFD library is part of the main section of the Debian
distribution, hence its license has to be DFSG-compliant.  There are at
least five other packages in Debian that are linked against netCDF:
xmgr, gri, grace, gmt, and dx, all of them in main.

I am pretty sure we are safe here.

> The other issue is whether we would rather have the mexCDF interface on
> octave-forge.  It works, but I haven't yet heard from the author under
> which license he will release the script files he uses to run it (if any).
> The mex files are already appropriately licensed, but they are not callable
> in a user-friendly fashion.

This is a sensible issue.  If the package you mention works in a
satisfactory way, nobody will need Mark's and mine ncload/ncsave. I do not
have any special interested in getting those two files into OctaveForge, and
I let to your appreciation if they should or not be included.

-- 
Rafael