Dear GRASS GIS team, does publishing a GRASS GIS add-on, in the official GRASS GIS Addon SVN repository [0] or else in any other git-based source code repository, under the EUPL v1.2 license [1], constitute a breach of the GPL v.2/3 license(s) [3], under which GRASS GIS is published?
[0] https://trac.osgeo.org/grass/browser/grass-addons [1] https://eupl.eu/1.2/en/ [2] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html / https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html The GPL license is a "strong copyleft" license. However, it is not downstream compatible with the EUPL license. The latter is a "flexible copyleft" license, as it includes a "compatibility clause" that references, among others, the GPL license(s). Does the "at arm's length" case apply for GRASS GIS and GRASS GIS addons? Do GRASS GIS core and GRASS GIS addons considered to operate as one? If yes, 1. this would mean that the GPL and the EUPL cannot be combined, in the case of GRASS GIS addons. 2. would the GRASS GIS team consider to add a similar "compatibility clause" to effectively make both licenses 100% cross-compatible? The specific case is an addon that: - is a Python script (or more Python scripts) - uses the following Python librairies: os, sys, subprocess, datetime, time, csv, math, atexit - uses the following PyGRASS librairies: grass.script, grass.exceptions, grass.pygrass.modules.shortcuts - a `Makefile` that points to the following GRASS GIS' source code files, at compile time to generate a GUI and an HTML file (the manual): - `$(MODULE_TOPDIR)/include/Make/Script.make` and - `$(MODULE_TOPDIR)/include/Make/Python.make` - uses GRASS GIS data base and modules (binaries and not their source code) to perform raster and/or vector processing operations Note also, - the page https://grass.osgeo.org/home/copyright/ states: "Geographic Resources Analysis Support System (GRASS) is Copyright, 1999-2018 GRASS Development Team, and licensed under terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). This includes all software, documentation, and associated materials." - `g.version -c`, returns, among other text: "Parts of GRASS are not copyright by the GRASS development team. The original authors hold the copyrights and you have to abide to their licensing terms where noted. (Keep in mind that code linking into GRASS can only be distributed if compatible with the GPL.)" Is, effectively, the compilation of a GRASS GIS addon, using the above mentioned source code files, considered as "linking into GRASS"? Thank you, Nikos ps- Please note that the link to https://grass.osgeo.org/grass77/source/COPYING under https://grass.osgeo.org/download/software/sources/ is broken.
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