On Oct 31, 5:05 pm, "William Stein" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Fri, Oct 31, 2008 at 4:20 PM, user923005 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > On Oct 31, 1:13 pm, "Bill Hart" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> Thanks for your comments user923005. You can use GPL code in a > >> commercial environment. You just can't distribute it with and make it > >> a part of a commercial product. So you can use it for work, you just > >> can't sell it. That's fair enough in my view. If I write the code for > >> free, I can't see why others ought to be able to sell it unless > >> something is given back. > > >> Currently all of MPIR is LGPL by the way, though our intention is to > >> have LGPL and GPL versions eventually. Some of our code we definitely > >> want to remain GPL. This is because a number of mathematical software > >> companies have not given code back to the open source community but > >> used LGPL mathematical software in their code. > > > If they improve the LGPL portion of it, then they are breaking the law > > not to return their improvements. > > It depends a lot on how they make the improvements, e.g., one > could implement a better function foo that uses the LGPL library > as a building block, but doesn't involving actually changing the > LGPL'd library. > > Of course, Bill said nothing above about improvements. Instead, > he specifically said "a number of mathematical software > companies have not given code back to the open source community but > used LGPL mathematical software in their code." He is refereeing > to Maplesoft, Wolfram, and Magma, whose relationships with the open > source community could be better. > > > It's none of my business what license policy you choose. I am just > > saying that GPLv3 will mean that it won't get used commercially. If > > that is your goal, then it is perfectly fine. It all depends on what > > you want to happen with the tool set in the long run. > > eMPIRe will be used commercially. The GPLv3 version of eMPIRe > might not be, but the LGPLv3 version certainly will be. > > > I lament that some excellent software cannot be used for some > > interesting tasks because of the license policy. > > I also lament that some excellent software can't be used the way I > want because it is expensive and/or closed source. The situation with, > e.g., Magma right now is very frustrating.
As far as open source GPL mathematical packages, this looks pretty interesting: http://www.sagemath.org/ I watched a TV show on it recently. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "mpir-devel" group. To post to this group, send email to mpir-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/mpir-devel?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
