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

[Marcus Edel]

Hello,

Just to be clear we are talking about to migrate to BSD and not to MPL as
pointed out in the mail subject. I think basically switching to a BSD license is
a crucial step to make mlpack easier to deploy in a wide range of scenarios.

The main difference should be the presence of copyleft, i.e. the requirement to
release modifications of the source code as open source usually under the same
licence as the original code. In contrast, to the GNU licences including LGPL,
the BSD licence is very permissive. Basically the license allows you to release
derivatives under another licence, including as closed source.

In a nut, switching to a BSD style license makes things easier. If someone wants
to use it, just go ahead and download it. If someone wants to use it as part of his
own project, they may do so freely, with the only provisions being you can’t use
the name without any permission.

Thanks,
Marcus

> On 18 Dec 2014, at 01:54, Ryan Curtin <gth671b at mail.gatech.edu> wrote:
> 
> 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
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> mlpack at cc.gatech.edu
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