[vtk-developers] Distributing GL2PS as part of VTK.

[Prabhu Ramachandran]

Dear Christophe,

I recently added a vtkGL2PSExporter to VTK (http://www.vtk.org).  I
have been thinking about adding GL2PS to the VTK sources so that VTK
users would find it easy to build VTK with GL2PS support.  Currently
they have to download GL2PS separately, build it and configure VTK to
use GL2PS.  Its not too hard to do but is a bit of a pain considering
that VTK is a huge build with many different options.  So its easy to
forget about or ignore GL2PS.  Admittedly, users who *really* want
GL2PS support will get it working.  However, not all users build VTK
by hand.  For example Debian users are likely to use Debian's packages
which do not support GL2PS.

Anyway, the issue with including GL2PS inside VTK is the license.  VTK
is distributed under a BSD-like license.  If we include GL2PS as part
of VTK we will add a readme to the GL2PS directory warning users that
GL2PS is LGPL'd and any modifications to it are subject to the LGPL.
However, is it even legal to distribute sources and binaries of VTK
along with GL2PS?  Please note that we will include GL2PS as part of
VTK only to ease the compilation procedure and will not make any
modifications to GL2PS itself.

I'd like to have your views on the subject.  Do you think it is legal
to distribute GL2PS as part of VTK?  Would you approve of such usage?
If its illegal and you do approve of our usage would it be possible to
provide an exception for our use?

Thanks for the excellent library!

cheers,
prabhu