[SciPy-dev] Official scikits licensing (was: Re: requesting feedback on/editing of scikits wiki-page)

[Robert Kern]

David Cournapeau wrote:

> One thing which may need to be changed is the license requirement. I 
> thought one of the point of scikits was to include code useful for scipy 
> community, but which cannot be licensed to BDS/MIT. For example, 
> including GPL code, or package which depends on LGPL libraries. 
> malabwrap for that matter depends on proprietary libraries to work...
> 
> Once this issue is solved, I would be happy to give two toolboxes of my 
> own for audio signal processing (released under the BSD, but depending 
> on LGPL libraries).

This is the official word on scikits licensing: scikits packages are free to
choose their own open source license. The license should be officially OSI
approved. We will allow packages to contain code with licenses that, in our
judgment, comply with the Open Source Definition but have not gone through the
approval process. This is to allow us to adopt old code with permissive
licenses. The package itself, though, should use a well-known OSI-approved license.

Packages depending on proprietary code are discouraged, but we will allow some
packages on a case-by-case basis. Primarily, only packages which depend on
proprietary code in order to interact with a proprietary system will be allowed.
Wrappers for proprietary *libraries* most likely won't.

-- 
Robert Kern

"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma
 that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had
 an underlying truth."
  -- Umberto Eco