[gmx-developers] Mixed license post 5.0

Fri Feb 7 10:30:14 CET 2014

Hi,

Just don’t do all the work first, because I don’t think a patch that introduced a large GPLv2-only component would have any chance of getting accepted.

Gradually I hope we’ll have a much cleaner API interface, but when that happens we should also prevent all programs (including our own) from directly using low-level undocumented internal library functions.

It is already a problem in the documentation that we have some parts of Gromacs that do not work if we haven’t linked with GSL (so a user might have to ask the sysadm to recompile), and I think we need to get rid of such conditional parts rather than introducing even more, in particular when they are not compatible with each other.

For GSL we’ve had people say that they would try to get rid of those dependencies later, but in practice that doesn’t happen once the code has been accepted, so the obvious solution going forward is not to accept code until such fixes are part of the patch :-) 

Cheers,

Erik

On 07 Feb 2014, at 10:15, David van der Spoel <spoel at xray.bmc.uu.se> wrote:

> On 2014-02-06 23:45, Erik Lindahl wrote:
>> PS: Just to give a concrete example why I don’t want lots of modules
>> using incompatible external libraries with strict licences: if you want
>> to rely on OpenBabel, there is no legal possibility whatsoever to
>> distribute a binary using both OpenBabel (GLPv2 only) in combination
>> with GSL (GPLv3 or later). Rather than furthering this trend, I think it
>> is reasonable to require that developers who want a particular
>> functionality in Gromacs have to contribute the code so this
>> functionality can be used with our default (LGPLv2) license that allows
>> reuse with other programs.
>> 
> 
> I understand the sentiments about the main code base and agree with 
> that. This is why my proposal was to have the dependencies localized to 
> a well defined subset - i.e. one subdirectory in programs that is 
> compiled conditionally and yields a separate binary. No dependencies 
> from the rest of the code base to this part of the code, and openbabel 
> etc. libraries would only be linked to the additional binary.
> 
> One reason I would like to keep my code in gromacs is that it uses lots 
> of deep down functionality from e.g. gmxpreprocess that should not be in 
> the public API of gromacs. Another reason is that gromacs once more 
> develops at cannonball speeds, and keeping up to date with the rapid 
> changes is much easier with tight integration.
> 
> When the time comes I will upload a patch and I propose we discuss it then.
> 
>> Cheers,
>> 
>> Erik
>> 
>> On 06 Feb 2014, at 23:38, Erik Lindahl <erik.lindahl at scilifelab.se
>> <mailto:erik.lindahl at scilifelab.se>> wrote:
>> 
>>> Hi,
>>> 
>>> Just to confirm what Roland said: We deliberately chose LGPLv2.1 (or
>>> later) since it’s the most liberal of all these licenses. Anybody is
>>> more than welcome to link to other code that is GPLv2/3, in which case
>>> the resulting binary will have that license.
>>> 
>>> However, personally I will vote against accepting patches into the
>>> main Gromacs codebase that rely on large external libraries that are
>>> are not compatlble with LGPLv2 since that will just cause further
>>> fractioning and large parts of the source code that are not tested by
>>> default. Such things are better distributed as separate programs, IMHO.
>>> 
>>> Cheers,
>>> 
>>> Erik
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 06 Feb 2014, at 23:18, Roland Schulz <roland at utk.edu
>>> <mailto:roland at utk.edu>> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Hi,
>>>> 
>>>> I don't think you need to do anything special if you want to add
>>>> Openbabel as an optional dependency. We already have a GPL optional
>>>> dependency: FFTW. This doesn't effect the source of Gromacs or gmx
>>>> binaries without the optional feature enabled are licensed under
>>>> LGPL. If you compile Gromacs with the GPL version of FFTW (=you don't
>>>> own a commercial FFTW license) and then distribute (remember the GPL
>>>> clause only triggers when you distribute - what you do without
>>>> distributing doesn't matter) the resulting binary with the FFTW
>>>> included then this derived work is licensed automatically under GPL.
>>>> I think if you distribute Gromacs compiled against FFTW but without
>>>> including the FFTW shared libraries, then I think it doesn't qualify
>>>> as derived work, and thus the binary still would be LGPL and not
>>>> automatically GPL.
>>>> 
>>>> Roland
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Thu, Feb 6, 2014 at 3:58 PM, David van der Spoel
>>>> <spoel at xray.bmc.uu.se <mailto:spoel at xray.bmc.uu.se>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>    Hi,
>>>> 
>>>>    I'm considering the following option:
>>>> 
>>>>    what if gromacs would sport a second binary apart from "gmx" that
>>>>    would
>>>>    be licensed under the GPLv2 license and hence be able to link to
>>>>    other
>>>>    GPL libraries?
>>>> 
>>>>    The advantage would be that we can e.g. link to openbabel, and in
>>>>    this
>>>>    manner read in gaussian files (I have for instance a tool that
>>>>    creates a
>>>>    GAFF topology for small molecules from gaussian files). Linux
>>>>    distributors could distribute the package without problems as far
>>>>    as I see.
>>>> 
>>>>    Any drawbacks?
>>>> 
>>>>    --
>>>>    David van der Spoel, Ph.D., Professor of Biology
>>>>    Dept. of Cell & Molec. Biol., Uppsala University.
>>>>    Box 596, 75124 Uppsala, Sweden. Phone: +46184714205
>>>>    <tel:%2B46184714205>.
>>>>    spoel at xray.bmc.uu.se <mailto:spoel at xray.bmc.uu.se>
>>>>    http://folding.bmc.uu.se <http://folding.bmc.uu.se/>
>>>>    --
>>>>    Gromacs Developers mailing list
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>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> --
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>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> David van der Spoel, Ph.D., Professor of Biology
> Dept. of Cell & Molec. Biol., Uppsala University.
> Box 596, 75124 Uppsala, Sweden. Phone:	+46184714205.
> spoel at xray.bmc.uu.se    http://folding.bmc.uu.se
> -- 
> Gromacs Developers mailing list
> 
> * Please search the archive at http://www.gromacs.org/Support/Mailing_Lists/GMX-developers_List before posting!
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