[Insight-developers] Linear algebra licensing and ITK 3.18 Release

Tue Mar 23 05:20:06 EDT 2010

luis , I don't think I would write it better than you, but I thought
you could link against LGPL code and still be "safe".
One exemple I would take is Qt.

Then, would it be "safe" to distribute a library in itk/utilities,
that would be under lpgl, making sure that the code is always only
compiled as a library and linked against?
(side question, is it actually ok to statistically link then, or would
it restrict the compilation to a shared library mode in order to keep
ITK main code under BSD ?)

what do you think?

alex.
PS: abstinence-only sex-ed is like GPL? or one lead to the other? but
then, which one to which one! oh well, kent, you got me confused there
:-)

On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 2:12 AM, kent williams
<norman-k-williams at uiowa.edu> wrote:
> Not to belabor the point but you say 'your summary is correct' and yet you
> state LGPL should can't be included, where as I said I thought that it could
> be OK.  I don't care one way or another. I don't know of any LGPL code that
> ITK needs or wants.
>
> But I am interested in which LGPL restrictions are incompatible with the ITK
> license.
>
> It's really a global problem. Some people apply licenses to their code
> without really understanding what they've done, or they fail to include any
> license at all, which is just as dangerous.
>
> Due to DMCA Copyright rules, EVERYTHING anyone creates is implicitly
> copyrighted, so if someone wants to share code, they need to explicitly
> state what rights they're willing to grant those who wish to use their code.
>
> As for GPL, it reflects the absolutist political stance of Richard Stallman,
> and like all absolutist opinions, it is by definition unreasonable. It's
> like abstinence-only sex education: being unwilling to accomodate real world
> conditions, it ends up sabotaging its own goals.
>
> But that's probably not an arugment to get into here ;-)
>
> On 3/22/10 11:36 AM, "Luis Ibanez" <luis.ibanez at kitware.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi Kent,
>>
>>
>> Your summary is correct.
>>
>>
>> 1) Yes, ITK's BDS license has minimal conditions and it is one of the
>>     most permissive licenses approved by the Open Source Initiative.
>>
>> 2) Code covered by the GPL license can not be incorporated into ITK.
>>
>> 3) Code covered by the LGPL license can not be incorporated into ITK.
>>
>> 4) Yes, code incorporated into ITK must be under a BSD license or
>>     under a license that has less restrictions than the BSD license.
>>     The ACM license is very restrictive, therefore we must replace
>>     any code in ITK that is subject to that license.
>>
>> 5) Yes, in extremely useful cases we carry code that may facilitate
>>     to interface to GPL and/or LGPL code. Such adaptor classes are
>>     to be enabled by the user, via a CMake flag.  It is then up to the
>>     users to deal with the consequences of their applications becoming
>>     subject to the GPL license.
>>
>>
>>
>>        Luis
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> ----------
>> On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 11:34 AM, kent williams
>> <norman-k-williams at uiowa.edu> wrote:
>>> Correct me if I'm wrong but here's my executive overview of ITK licensing.
>>>
>>> 1. ITK itself is released with a BSD-like license, meaning that it's truly
>>> Free software, in that anyone can use it any way they want to --
>>> incorporating it into both open- and closed-source applications.
>>>
>>> 2. GPL has the 'viral hook' disadvantage, in that it forces anything
>>> incorporating GPL-licensed software to also be GPL licensed.  This is
>>> incompatible with ITK's license, so ITK doesn't incorporate GPL-licensed
>>> software.
>>>
>>> 3. The Lesser GPL (LGPL) license is GPL minus the 'viral hook.' GLIBC is
>>> released under GPL; otherwise no closed-source program would be legal on
>>> Linux, or OSX.  LGPL libraries could potentially be incorporated into ITK.
>>>
>>> 4. Anything incorporated into ITK has to have an unambiguous software
>>> license compatible with the ITK license.  Thus the current search to replace
>>> the linear algebra stuff apparently under ACM license restrictions.
>>>
>>> 5. In extraordinary cases, (FFTW being the prime example), ITK will include
>>> classes that depend on GPL-licensed libraries, but without including the
>>> library as part of ITK. It's up to the ITK user to resolve their own
>>> licensing questions if they configure ITK to use these GPL-licensed
>>> libraries.
>>>
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