[vtk-developers] vtkPowerCrustSurfaceReconstruction

[Will Schroeder]

Hi Tim-

At 02:08 PM 7/11/2002 +0100, Tim Hutton wrote:
>Hey Will,
>
>I spoke with Nina about the GPL issues - she said that there was no 
>possibility of getting permission to include the code in VTK without it, 
>the University of Texas aren't happy about the possibility of people 
>developing commercial code using publically-funded software. This is a 
>shame of course. You said before that GPL code in VTK wasn't necessarily a 
>problem if it had warnings on but I understand your position. Of course if 
>you want to speak to the U of T people and sort something out then that 
>would be fantastic...

It's sad that some people don't realize that publicly funded software means 
companies and people paying taxes to the government...as Bill H. here at 
Kitware said, the analogy is like saying trucks can't use the highways 
because the highways were built with public funds. What the Universities 
really are saying is that they want revenue from commercial 
applications...from what I've seen (US) Universities do less and less with 
the aim of serving the public good, and are run more and more like 
businesses. I don't have a problem with this as long as they are honest 
about what they are doing, and pay taxes on commercial enterprises.


>I agree that the code is too big and messy. I'm happy to take it offline 
>until we can improve things - I will make it available on my website for 
>people that want to use it as-is. Let me fix it up so it compiles in the 
>continuous builds and I'll remove it before this evening.

I think this is the right solution for now. This is extremely valuable 
stuff, let's let it sit on your web site until we can figure out what to 
do. We'll make sure there are links from Sebastien's pages. In the mean 
time I'll be muttering to myself the rest of the day...

Will