[mlpack] Request for comments: change of license to MPL

[Ryan Curtin]

Hello there folks,

I have just spent a week at NIPS with Marcus and from numerous
discussions I had with people concerning mlpack, I discovered that there
does exist a reasonably-sized subset of people who are interested in
mlpack, but cannot use it because it is LGPL (usually, their employer is
not comfortable with the license, or their own license is less
restrictive).  One well-known example is the Vowpal Wabbit online
learning library -- its author, John Langford, expressed interest in
using mlpack were the license more flexible (VW is BSD).  This will also
allow mlpack to be used more easily within BSD or other
permissively-licensed projects.

Thus, I think it is a good idea to switch from the LGPL license to
something more permissive.  So, following what I heard at NIPS, I
propose a switch to the three-clause BSD license.  It can be seen here:

  http://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause

I wanted to create this email thread as an opportunity for discussions,
in case there are any dissenting (or agreeing) opinions.  I suspect that
the choice of license doesn't bother most people on this list one way or
another, but it is good to have a discussion beforehand.

In the absence of any serious dissent or disagreements within a week,
I'll start contacting everyone who has contributed to mlpack to get
their permission for the relicensing.  That should probably take a
couple of weeks, and then mlpack trunk (and future releases) can be
relicensed as BSD.  Old releases of mlpack were and will continue to be
released as LGPL.

Thanks,

Ryan

-- 
Ryan Curtin    | "I don't really come from outer space."
ryan at ratml.org |   - L.J. Washington