On 20 Jul, 23:42, "William Stein" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi Sage-Devel (cc: Markus), > > After emailing with Markus Hohenwarter -- director of Geogebra -- and > looking around at the code, I get the impression that the Geogebra group is > very well meaning and a great group of people doing some wonderful things > in math education.
Good. I've had experience where people breach the GPL out of ignorance, and not intent. I knew of a scientific calculator which run on a PDA which was sold only as an executable. When it started up, it said it used code from the GNU Scientific Library (GSL). But the GSL is GPL'ed code. I let the developers of the GSL know, who basically advised the developer of the calculator they could not use their code, but suggested non-GPL'ed alternatives. It all ended ok, and the GSL develpers were kind enough to send me a copy of the book on the GSL. > Unfortunately, it appears they are also possibly violating > the GPL in order to ensure complete control over their project (which > is something > the GPL doesn't allow). I want to emphasize that I think they are well > meaning > and aren't doing this out of any sort of evil intentions, and of > course I strongly > applaud their putting a lot of effort into open source math software and math > education, much of it likely voluntary. Is their intension to try to make some money from comerical users? I can't blame them wanting to do that if they have put a lot of work in, and would rather see some benifit for their efforts. I've personally produced GPL'ed software, but would not wish to provide extensive support for commercial users for zero cost. Hence I've sold support. If that is their intension by crippling the code, perhaps you can point out that making money by selling support to commercial users is completely possible under the GPL. People earn their living from supporting things like Linux, Apache and many other bits of software that have GPL or similar licenses. I think Sun are a pretty good example, who now give Solaris away, have made all they can open- source, but still make a lot of money by supporting Solaris. As do plenty of other people. The GeoGebra developer's do not need to cripple code in order to make money from commercial users. GeoGebra's incorporation into Sage might well give them a larger user base and so a larger potential market to sell support to. Dave --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to sage-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/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
