Hi Rodney,

Yes, you are supposed to release it, and it's not supposed to go the  
other way.

Here's a related question, regarding licenses:  can you take  
something that has a very loose, freeware license, and tack a  
different license on it?  For example, if I take code (in my case, it  
will be some camera driver libraries) that are currently freeware (no  
restrictions), but I want to release my project using the GPL, can I  
add a GPL header, or do I need to keep the two parts of the code  
separate (e.g., different licenses in different source files)?

There are lots of web pages that discuss the various licenses and  
their implications.

I wish the ARToolkit was LGPL, not GPL, because it would keep it's  
code open, and allow it to be used in more interesting ways.  Oh  
well ...

On Jun 14, 2005, at 1:43 AM, rodney wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> This is something discussed before, but I don't recall it really being
> resolved.
>
> AR Toolkit is released under GPL so any code that links to it must  
> also be
> open source right? .
>
> However, there is a non-GPL version  of AR Toolkit that can be  
> licensed for
> a very reasonable fee and commission on sales through Mark's company.
>
> But can something that has once been GPL really become non-GPL if  
> it uses
> the code from the  original GPL distribution, that many people have
> contributed to under the assumption that the code will be released  
> as GPL?
>
> This is a biggie for those who want to make a commercial product  
> based on
> the AR Toolkit in the near future. Can we really do it without legal
> complications later?
>
> Has anyone managed to get a good legal opinion on this  stuff?
>
> I'm a bit confused about it all.
>
>     Rod
>
> Rodney Berry
> ATR Media Information Science Laboratories
> Kyoto Japan
> Mail:
> http://xinbox.com/rodberry?subject=response%20from%20signature% 
> 20address
> Homepage:     http://www.mis.atr.jp/~rodney
> Ph:   +81-774-95-1449
> Fax:  +81-774-95-1408
>
> ---------------------------------
>
>
>

> But can something that has once been GPL really become non-GPL if it uses
> the code from the  original GPL distribution, that many people have
> contributed to under the assumption that the code will be released as GPL?

No. The people who made a contribution to ARTK have to give a license to 
HITLab to allow HITLab to use their contribution commercially. This may 
or may not involve compensation for this license.

However, as far as I know ARTK does not contain many significant 
contributions from people outside HITLab. A few lines of bugfix may not 
even be considered an independent contribution, and would therefore be 
void. But of course I would not want to rely on that interpretation.

What you need if you license any software from a commercial company is 
the guarantee that the software they license to you is covered in terms 
of third party rights. This should be provided with ARTK, and I believe 
it is.

Best regards
Dieter

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rodney wrote:

>AR Toolkit is released under GPL so any code that links to it must also be
>open source right? .
>  
>
no, as far as i know, you only have to release the sources at the moment
that you release your product ("binaries").
as long as you keep your software just for the, there is no requirement
to make it open source.

anybody, please correct me if i'm wrong on that...

bye,
Daniel


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>
> Yes, you are supposed to release it, and it's not supposed to go the other 
> way.
>
Right, as Daniel said, only if you release binaries.  If you keep it all 
to yourself (or private organization), you don't have to release sources.

> Here's a related question, regarding licenses:  can you take something that 
> has a very loose, freeware license, and tack a different license on it?  For 
> example, if I take code (in my case, it will be some camera driver libraries) 
> that are currently freeware (no restrictions), but I want to release my 
> project using the GPL, can I add a GPL header, or do I need to keep the two 
> parts of the code separate (e.g., different licenses in different source 
> files)?
>
It depends entirely on the license.  If you take public domain software 
(no license) you can do whatever you like, including applying a different 
license.  Especially free licenses like the BSD license ( 
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php ) or MIT license ( 
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html ) also allow you to do 
this, so BSD licensed code can be included in proprietary software with 
restrictive licensing, or in GPL projects, etc.

> There are lots of web pages that discuss the various licenses and their 
> implications.
>
Yes, and lots of disagrement about all the implications.  Unfortunately, 
nothing gets decided for sure until it's tested in court, the way these 
things work, and that hasn't happened yet.

> I wish the ARToolkit was LGPL, not GPL, because it would keep it's code open, 
> and allow it to be used in more interesting ways.  Oh well ...
>
If you want to make propietary software with the ARToolKit, you have to 
purchase a license for it.  That seems pretty reasonable to me. *shrug* 
The purpose of putting the code under GPL wasn't to keep the code open so 
much as it was to allow other parties to contribute their modifications to 
it, while still retaining the ability to sell licenses to people with 
commercial interests.  Unfortunately, the GPL is only partially suited for 
this task - it's focus is really to keep source code open, irrespective of 
commercial interests.  In the future, a Creative Commons license is 
probably more appropriate ( http://creativecommons.org/license/ ), which 
can specify particular clauses for sharing of code and commercial use 
restrictions.

-steve diverdi
-sdiverdi@c ..........

Dear all,

This is something discussed before, but I don't recall it really being
resolved.

AR Toolkit is released under GPL so any code that links to it must also be
open source right? .

However, there is a non-GPL version  of AR Toolkit that can be licensed for
a very reasonable fee and commission on sales through Mark's company.

But can something that has once been GPL really become non-GPL if it uses
the code from the  original GPL distribution, that many people have
contributed to under the assumption that the code will be released as GPL?

This is a biggie for those who want to make a commercial product based on
the AR Toolkit in the near future. Can we really do it without legal
complications later?

Has anyone managed to get a good legal opinion on this  stuff?

I'm a bit confused about it all.

	Rod

Rodney Berry
ATR Media Information Science Laboratories
Kyoto Japan
Mail:
http://xinbox.com/rodberry?subject=response%20from%20signature%20address
Homepage: 	http://www.mis.atr.jp/~rodney
Ph:   +81-774-95-1449
Fax:  +81-774-95-1408

---------------------------------

On 14/06/2005, at 4:39 PM, Dieter Schmalstieg wrote:


>> But can something that has once been GPL really become non-GPL if  
>> it uses
>> the code from the  original GPL distribution, that many people have
>> contributed to under the assumption that the code will be released  
>> as GPL?
>>
>>
>
> No. The people who made a contribution to ARTK have to give a  
> license to HITLab to allow HITLab to use their contribution  
> commercially. This may or may not involve compensation for this  
> license.
>

The people who have contributed changes to the ARToolkit repository  
on SourceForge have not agreed to anything like this, so all changes  
made to the CVS are licensed under the GPL I believe. These changes  
are owned by their respective contributors, and even HITLab can't  
relicense them because they don't own the copyright to the changes.

If HITLab wants to license the code under a different license than  
the current GPL, they must distribute a version before others started  
contributing to it. In order to change the license of the code on  
SourceForge, they must get permission from every single contributor  
to make this change. You need every copyright holders permission to  
do a license change. For example, it would be impossible for Linus  
Torvalds to change the license on the Linux kernel, there are too  
many contributors and you would not be able to contact each and every  
one, and none of them signed any paperwork agreeing to transfer  
ownership to Linus.

My understanding is that Dr Kato maintains his own personal version  
of ARToolkit which is different and maybe more advanced than the one  
we use, and that this is the version that you get when you buy it. So  
it doesn't include changes that a contributed under the GPL by  
others. But this is not really an issue since most changes have been  
relatively minor. In the future however, if major development is done  
to ARToolkit by people in the community like us, they will be  
permanently under GPL and not possible for the HITLab to sell under a  
different license without permission.

The thing to remember with GPL is that once you have a legal copy of  
the code licensed under the GPL, you can do whatever you want with it  
(assuming you don't violate the GPL) and there is nothing that the  
original developer can do to stop you using it. If you develop a  
commercial product you will always have that version of the code  
available to you. The SourceForge site might disappear or whatever,  
but the copy you have you can keep forever and distribute under the  
terms of the GPL.

regards,
Wayne