Dear list members,
I have come to realize that my understanding of free software licensing
was somewhat na?ve. The problem is that I now find that, in spite of
spending quite a bit of time reading about various licenses on the web, I
have been unable to identify a suitable license for the situation that I
have with one of my packages.
I am solely responsible for the development of my package, `foo' say.
However, most functions in `foo' call functions from a proprietary package,
`bar' say , the latter not being available from an online software
repository and consisting of R functions that call routines in a library.
That is, `foo' enhances `bar'.
I had thought that a GPL licence was appropriate because (1) `foo' is free
software and (ii) I do not distribute `bar' with `foo'. That is, I am
distributing only free software. However, I have come to understand that
this is not the case because a free software package linked with a
proprietary package does not satisfy the requirements to be GPL.
I have found it difficult to work out a license that might cover my
package because much of the discussion online covers cases that are the
opposite of mine i.e. cases where `foo' is proprietary and `bar' is
freeware. I can appreciate why this needs to be avoided.
I can also understand that a disadvantage of what I am doing is that it
tends to entrench the use of such software. While I agree that it is
desirable that `bar' be replaced with free software, unfortunately `bar'
has functionality that is currently infeasible to replace with free
software. At least I am not profiting from the enhancements that I have
made.
I am hoping that someone more experienced in software development and
licensing issues can suggest a license type that might be suitable for
`foo' such that at least the enhancements that it incorporates remain
`free'?
Cheers,
Chris Brien
Adjunct Senior Lecturer in Statistics
-----
Phenomics and Bioinformatics Research Centre
University of South Australia
GPO Box 2471
ADELAIDE 5001 South Australia
Phone: +61 8 8302 5535 Fax: +61 8 8302 5785
Email: Chris.Brien at unisa.edu.au
WEB page: <http://people.unisa.edu.au/Chris.Brien>
CRICOS No 00121B