[vtkusers] Derivative works

[Wagner Sales]

Hi Matt,

I'm not sure about the VTK license issues, but are very open ( a BSD 
like license ). That's means you can use it at your project without 
problems.
Note I'm not a lawyer, just an open source developer, then, my comments 
are just intended to help, but, of course, not an official oppinion.
The conditions are the above ( extracted from VTK faq, Legal issues ):

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

    * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
      notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

    * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
      notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in
      the documentation and/or other materials provided with the
      distribution.

    * Neither name of Ken Martin, Will Schroeder, or Bill Lorensen nor
      the names of any contributors may be used to endorse or promote
      products derived from this software without specific prior written
      permission.

    * Modified source versions must be plainly marked as such, and must
      not be misrepresented as being the original software.



Matt Valerio wrote:

>Hello all,
>
>I'm a grad student in electrical engineering and have been working on using
>object-oriented programming practices to solve engineering problems.  Lately
>I've been developing some concepts for an object-oriented framework to
>support some of the research that I'm doing.
>
>To do this, I've been looking at a number of C++ libraries (VTK is one of
>them) to get a feel for what some good software design practices would be
>for successful large-scale object-oriented codebases.  (No need to re-invent
>the wheel, right?)
>
>>From this perspective, am I creating a derivative work from VTK?  If so, how
>do I need to properly give credit to VTK?
>
>Also, particular features of the code appear very well-designed (such as the
>PrintSelf() function and the vtkIndent class) and I would like to adapt them
>to my code.  Can I cut/paste what I need as long as I give credit to the
>code's source? 
>
Since you give the credits, no problems.

> What if I didn't cut/paste the code, but instead used the
>underlying ideas?
>  
>
I don't know.

>I'm pretty new to the open-source software scene and wanted to clarify these
>issues because I'm just beginning this software project.  I don't want to
>write a lot of foundational code that would need to be changed later because
>of legal issues.
>  
>
Most of the opensource projects today are covered by OSI-Approved 
licenses. But are pretty different. The VTK are, I think, a BSD like, as 
I said. This license no make obligations to developer, for research or 
commercial purposes. Others licenses, like the well knowed GPL, make 
some obligations like:
- You must provide the source code with your aplication.
- Your application must be provided under GPL ( or osi-approved? ) 
license. This last comments are just because you have been looking in 
other libraries, may be, with other license terms.
In this case, some software vendors have good faqs about licenses. For 
example, Trolltech, the Qt creators, explains very well the GPL ( Qt 
have a dual license model, more at www.trolltech.com ).
More one tip: in VTK version 4.4 ( and erlier, may be ) are some 
alghorithms that's have patents. In version 5.0 these patents are 
removed, since are no longer valid.
Finally, read carefully any open license. In most cases this licenses 
are clear and without traps.

Regards

Wagner

>Thanks to anyone that replies!
>Matt 
>
>
>
>
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