[mkgmap-dev] splitter license & copyright

Sat Jan 10 10:36:43 GMT 2015

Hi Gerd,

On 01/10/2015 07:17 AM, Gerd Petermann wrote:
> I must confess that I don't care about the licence as long
> as I am the author. I'd be happy to hear that someone else
> can use a copy of my work, also if it is for commercial purposes.
> If I code an algo that is described somewhere I try to point out the source,
> and I avoid to copy copyrighted sources as I am not able
> to understand lawyers speach (neither in English nor in German).

While the GPL-3 doesn't prevent commercial use, it allows charging money
for the software (distribution), but also requires that any derivative
works are licensed under the GPL-3 too. This limits the use of the GPL-3
code in proprietary software, because if it incorporates GPL-3 code it's
a derivative work and licensed under the GPL-3 too as soon as it's
distributed.

As long as you're the sole copyright holder to a source file, you always
have the option to license a copy differently for commercial purposes.
If you're not the sole copyright holder, the other copyright holders
need to consent to a different license.

> I do not want to put my full name
> into the sources because I don't like to find myself with search engines like
> Google, so I use GerdP instead. 
> If that is a problem this can be changed, but I'd prefer something like
> "Copyright (C) 20xx by the splitter contributors"
> if we have to state a copyright at all.

I'm not sure why you don't like to find your Free Software contributions
with search engines. While I also prefer to be an invisible force behind
the scenes, this is difficult to achieve in Free Software projects that
operate out in the open. Consistent use of an alias in all your
communications is about the only way to go, as many do in the Tor and
wider InfoSec community for example.

Assigning your copyright to Steve specifically or the splitter
contributors more generally is an option if your don't wish to be named.
Although your contributions to mkmap are well known thanks to your list
activity.

Kind Regards,

Bas

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