Re: 1999 Swarm survey results: available online [extra bonus question!]

[Rick Riolo]

Marcus,

These seem like strong arguments for going to the GPL.

You might want to directly ask some of the non-academic users
of Swarm (or potential users who came to SwarmFest99, or are
on the various mailing lists) to see what they think.
(By directly I mean sending them messages directly, since
they might not notice the request you sent below.)

If I understand it (and I'm sure I don't understand it all...),
point (5) below means that if a private company uses Swarm
to develop a system/model for in-company use, i.e., doesn't try
to sell it, then they can keep their model private.
Is that right?
If so, that probably covers the concerns of most private
companies who are interested in Swarm...at least it would
for the private companies I have helped develop Swarm models.

But as I say, you might spend a little time to directly
ask them, to be sure to get their thoughts on this before
making the change.   While Swarm may survive ok under
the GPL, if that drives off non-academic users I think 
Swarm will have a much more difficult time surviving.

- r

ps sorry for sending this to two lists:  that's what
   reply-to came up with, and it wasn't clear to me
   where you wanted this conversation to take place.


Rick Riolo                           address@hidden
Center for Study of Complex Systems (CSCS)
4477 Randall Lab                
University of Michigan         Ann Arbor MI 48109-1120
Phone: 734 763 3323                  Fax: 734 763 9267
http://www.pscs.umich.edu/PEOPLE/rlr-home.html

On Wed, 12 May 1999, Marcus G. Daniels wrote:

> Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 13:28:27 -0600 (MDT)
> From: Marcus G. Daniels <address@hidden>
> To: address@hidden
> Subject: 1999 Swarm survey results: available online [extra bonus question!]
> 
> 
> I'd like to get some input about our distribution conditions for Swarm.
> 
> Currently, Swarm is distributed under the GNU Lesser General Public
> license (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/lesser.html).  This license was
> selected because it ensures that distributed changes and improvements
> to the simulator itself are available to us and available to the
> community.  The LGPL makes no demands on the general availability of
> source code for models that are implemented using Swarm.
> 
> However, five things are causing us to reconsider this decision, i.e.
> switching to the GPL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html):
> 
>   1) Windows users of Swarm already rely on the Cygwin DLL, which is
>      distributed under the GPL, not the LGPL.  Thus, Swarm models
>      distributed for the Windows environment effectively fall under
>      the GPL, unless you purchase a ~$7000US license from Cygnus.
> 
>   2) We are being inhibited from acheiving portability of the Java
>      layer for Swarm by denying ourselves the option of relying on
>      GPLed software.  As it stands, without several extra weeks of
>      work, HP/UX won't run Swarm 2.0 unless we put GPLed software in
>      the Swarm distribution.
> 
>   3) The Swarm survey indicates that research users dominate industry
>      users by factor of thirty.  Whatever comprimises we (via the LGPL)
>      make for industry users, it doesn't seem to be making a
>      difference in terms of getting industry participation.
> 
>   4) We can arrange alternative licenses for groups that distribute
>      (e.g. sell) models, but can't afford to distribute the source code to
>      their models. 
> 
>   5) There are no requirements imposed on users of
>      private, non-distributed Swarm models under the GPL.
> 
> For more info on free software licensing issues, please refer to:
> 
>    http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/copyleft.html
> 
> 
>                   ==================================
>    Swarm-Support is for discussion of the technical details of the day
>    to day usage of Swarm.  For list administration needs (esp.
>    [un]subscribing), please send a message to <address@hidden>
>    with "help" in the body of the message.
> 
> 

                  ==================================
   Swarm-Support is for discussion of the technical details of the day
   to day usage of Swarm.  For list administration needs (esp.
   [un]subscribing), please send a message to <address@hidden>
   with "help" in the body of the message.