[Coin-discuss] COIN-OR licences again...

[Soeren Sonnenburg]

On Mon, 2008-04-07 at 09:14 -0400, Alan King wrote:
> 
> Soeren 

Hi Alan,

> It is very unlikely that IBM will change CPL.  There is no strong
> pressure to do so internally, and from the point of view of usability,
> there are no strong reasons either. 

I did not think in this direction. The CPL should stay as it is
(changing it is a much bigger effort and as I understand it would
require a license change for the projects involved too). All I am asking
for is some kind of dual licensing of COIN-OR that enables more
widespread use of it (GPL compatibility would be *great*).

GPLv2 might not have been sufficient at the time COIN-OR was made public
so CPL was choosen but maybe (L)GPLv3 is now? I guess it was IBMs
intention when releasing the code to see it widely used, but
unfortunately the current choice of licensing is a big stumbling
block ...

> After reading through the debian-legal  email thread, I do sympathize
> with your concerns!  This could be a lot of risk for one person to
> take on in terms of investment of time.  On the bright side, it does
> seem like packages with CPL have made it into Debian, despite all the
> arguing (although maybe they squeaked in while folks were arguing
> about other things :-). 

Yes, but none of COIN-OR is in debian so far. As I feel it would deserve
to be in I will start packaging CLP. We will then see if it is getting a
similarly big user base (despite the license) as glpk/lpsolve.

Anyway please discuss whether dual licensing is an option for COIN-OR!

> Perhaps the best way to go is to diffuse the risk by taking it to
> Coin-TLC and asking if Coin wants to do this. Perhaps there are enough
> Project Managers willing to share in the work of preparing a Debian
> submission. 

It is probably a good idea (though it won't solve the licensing issue).

Best,
Soeren
-- 
Soeren Sonnenburg - Fraunhofer FIRST      Tel: +49 (30) 6392 1882
Kekulestr. 7, 12489 Berlin, Germany       Fax: +49 (30) 6392 1805
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