Re: GPL, LGPL, and copyleft

[Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso]

2012/3/30 Ben Abbott <address@hidden>:
> On Mar 30, 2012, at 10:26 AM, Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso wrote:
>
>> he GNU Scientific Library is another
>> GPL'ed numerical library. So is FFTW, and they sell GPL exceptions. I
>> find that fair. Everyone who makes derivative work from FFTW pays,
>> either with money or with code.
>
> Suitesparse too.
>
> Why not Octave as well ?

I don't think anyone has tried to get a GPL exception from us... Also,
I think it would be difficult, because it would effectively require a
license change, and given the large number of contributors we have,
some dead, a license change is effectively impossible, since we would
require everyone's permission or rewrite the code that has no
permission to relicense. Suitesparse and FFTW are presumably more
careful about keeping the number of contributors small or perhaps they
ask for copyright assignment.

- Jordi G. H.