Home Original page

[OT} How to un-GPL parts of a GPL'd module.

Anton Vredegoor anton at vredegoor.doge.nl
Tue Oct 8 20:04:11 EDT 2002 
On Tue, 08 Oct 2002 14:40:55 -0700, Erik Max Francis <max at alcyone.com>
wrote:

>Anton Vredegoor wrote:
>
>> how can I use a class or a function from a GLP'd module (cut-and-paste
>> style) in a module with BSD or public domain style release?
>> 
>> I guess I could e-mail the author for permission but if I would have
>> to wait for them to answer, it would slow my coding process down to a
>> snail's pace, and there's always the possibility of the author being
>> unwilling.
>> 
>> So that's not an option for me. I would rather rethink the problem and
>> start writing a new script.
>
>You really have only three options:
>
>1. Don't use the snippet and be safe.
>2. Use the snippet and be bound to GPL your code.
>3. Contact the author and ask him to make a private release of the
>material for you with an altered license.

This is a strange coincidence. The reason why I started this thread
was that your lindenmeyer system simulator works very well with the
sequencer class I use in my screensaver. I would not use it the way
one might think at first, but it is clear from only a superficial look
at the sourcecode that a sequence produced by the lindenmeyer system
simulator can be uniquely indexed by my sequencer class. So I wrote a
test script implementing a two way conversion using the lindenmeyer
system to filter out unwanted tuples and then converted back to
sequencer tuples. This produced "softer" output and I have been
watching my screensaver for a good part of the night using different
calibrations :-)

In the end I decided not to use the lindenmeyer system simulator
because I can just as soon write a tuple conversion script as wait for
you to answer my email. I do not want to imply that you are not
answering e-mail, just that the time it would take would be longer
than just writing a convertor myself. That's what I thought *then*.

By the way the lindenmeyer system algorithms themselves *are* in the
public domain, I think?

However, just because the two systems would work so well together for
other implementations I got a bit frustrated about the license
imcompatibilities and started this thread in order to adress the issue
in a more general way. Now it seems not so hard at all to get in
contact with the author: The author contacts me voluntarily!

Since my program is public domain I have no problem with someone
relicensing (parts of) it as GPL, but then the problem for me would be
that I could not use the GPL'd derivates myself, because I want my
code in the public domain. I could get into a lenghty explanation
about this but lets just say I am a postmodernist and I want my code
snippets to survive seperately if my complete script would not be
used.

Maybe we can work something out? Thanks for writing free sourcecode,

regards,

		Anton.
More information about the Python-list mailing list