[Biojava-l] nasty stuff

[Peter Rice]

Jared Nedzel <nedzel@mpi.com> writes:

>Under the Gnu Public License, if we integrate GPL software
>with our code, then we might have to make all our software
>open source.  Consequently, the suits prohibit us from using
>some (most?) GPL software.

If you integrate GPL software such that the result is a derived work
then you would have to use the GPL. It is incompatible with most
other licenses. Deliberately.

That is the reason for the Lesser GPL (or Library GPL), which just
requires you to ensure linking with other versions of the library if
you make any changes. It only means your software must be distributed
in a form that allows relinking, and that you need to distribute the
library source code including any modifications, but otherwise it is
suit-friendly.

It also allows you to distribute further under GPL, but I don't
suppose you will want to do that.

For these reasons, in the EMBOSS package we GPL the full package but
only LGPL the libraries so we can release EMBOSSified versions of
other programs under their original licenses (some of whch are GPL
anyway).

Still, I am puzzled by the suit panic attacks. Suppose you did
accidentally contaminate your software with GPL code. Who would sue
who?

If you sell a copy to a pharmacutical company, they could in theory
try to give a copy away for free under GPL... But you would have put
your own license on it... So, if they sue you for the right to
distribute you can point out in turn that the GPL bars you from
distributing it to them under the original license and demand that
they return it and all copies (since they can't redistribute
something they can't get)... As it was presumably worth the small
fortune they paid they are hardly going to try anything.
An old argument, but as far as I know (and IANAL or IANAS :-)
one that still holds.

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Rice                | Informatics Division, The Sanger Centre,
E-mail: pmr@sanger.ac.uk  | Wellcome Trust Genome Campus,
Tel: (44) 1223 494967     | Hinxton, Cambridge, CB10 1SA, England
Fax: (44) 1223 494919     | URL: http://www.sanger.ac.uk/Users/pmr/