Collecting arguments for licence change

[Frank Heckenbach]

Achim D. Brucker wrote:

> I'm trying to convince a group of authors (I'm not one of those)
> to release their software with a free licence (preferable (L)GPL or
> at least a (L)GPL compatible one).
> 
> The project is a (in its community) well known and highly respected 
> piece of software which was initially distributed under a non-free 
> licence, mainly:
>  "Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and 
>   its documentation for any non-commercial purpose and without fee 
>   is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice appears 
>   in all copies and that both the copyright notice and this permission 
>   notice and warranty disclaimer appear in supporting documentation, and 
>   that the name of the University xxx not be used in advertising or 
>   publicity pertaining to distribution of the software without specific, 
>   written prior permission."
> Where in the real licence terms, "University xxx" stands for two 
> European Universities.
>
> [...]
>
> As I have the suspicion that the important people cannot be conviced 
> on the legal level (the contradiction problem of the actual
> constellation) I try mainly to argue with the benefits of releasing 
> the software as free software.
> 
> Do you have any hints, guidelines, and/or further arguments for me? Any
> ideas how to start the licence discussion in a friendly way. 

I know this answer is very late (I was quite busy recently). Just
wanted to mention that your description reminded me a bit of GAP
<http://www.gap-system.org>, a mathematical package for computation
in discrete abstract algebra.

Previously GAP was released under a non-free license
(non-commercial), but recently it changed to the GPL. The authors
also are mostly of two European Universities. I don't know the
details and discussions that led to the decision, but if (still)
necessary, you could try to contact the responsible people ...

Frank

-- 
Frank Heckenbach, frank at g-n-u.de
http://fjf.gnu.de/
GnuPG and PGP keys: http://fjf.gnu.de/plan (7977168E)