Re: [DebianGIS] Re: [Qgis-user] ECW Licence
On Mon, Jan 08, 2007 at 02:10:00PM +0100, Paolo Cavallini wrote:
> I have heard pepole at Debian has analyzed the licence, and they found
> it almost compatible with free redistribution.
> Canop somebody clarify this?
> I think this is a good candidate for a FAQ
> Thanks.
> pc
>
The best thing ECW people could do is distributing with a double/triple
licensing scheme as currently, but choosing GPL with FOSS exceptions
(as it's currently done by MySQL AB for libmysqlclient) as
FOSS-compatible license. Their current style of pseudo-compatible
licensing is not acceptable for any distribution or use. In that way
GDAL and Mapserver (due to FOSS exceptions) could be compatible for use; GRASS
would be ok because it is GPL, and any other derivative software would
be also ok if it was FOSS with a known acceptable license.
Now we just need to have a contact with nice Ermapper folks in order
to evaluate hidden patents issues and so on. I would really advocating
for this kind of nice and common solution for their license needs...
--
Francesco P. Lovergine
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