[vtk-developers] Attributing VTK in a commercial app

[Ben Boeckel]

On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 16:20:27 -0500, David E DeMarle wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 3:54 PM, David Cole via vtk-developers <
> vtk-developers at vtk.org> wrote:
> > What do you mean by "Basically the BSD license says you have to have
> > VTK's license" ??
> >
> Just means that the software has to be able to display VTK's license. Maybe
> an about button will say something to the effect of, "parts of this
> application use VTK for which the copyright is …."

Yes, sorry that wasn't clear. The *text* of the license must be present,
not the terms themselves (but VTK's terms must be abided by *you*, but
that is "just" the text of the license itself).

<sidebar>
This is where the "virality" of the GPL comes from: its *terms* must be
passed through all the way to the end user, not just its text. Couple
that with the clause from the GPL which forbids additional restrictions
in addition to it and you get the case where GPL + X is either
(essentially) GPL or an infringement of the author's copyright
(incompatible).
</sidebar>

> > Do you mean I need to include the text of VTK's "Copyright.txt" file?

Yes.

> > It's a closed-source app, and it will be sold under a commercial
> > license. It is not going to have an open-source license.
> >
> Totally OK. Lame but OK.

Indeed :/ .

> > We are not going to use anybody's name to sell it, but we would like
> > to give kudos where kudos are due. i.e. -- we'd like to say "Made with
> > VTK!," ... we do not want to say "endorsed by Bill Lorensen..."
> > (although we may seek his endorsement separately from this
> > conversation....) :-)

Right. You can say "Made with VTK", but you can't use Kitware's, or any
contributors' reputation to market your (derived) application (to me,
it's a hat tip to trademark law and not confusing people as to what the
*real* VTK is). It's not so onerous for applications which *use* VTK as
it is for those which might be *forks* of VTK.

Again, IANAL and TINLA.

--Ben