-
Notifications
You must be signed in to change notification settings - Fork 438
Slycot license is GPL whereas python-control license is BSD. #1057
New issue
Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.
By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.
Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account
Comments
Ok, I may self-answer my question: slycot is not necessary (but it is desirable). Python-control can run without slycot for many use-cases. If your work falls in such use-cases, then you can consider your work bsd license compliant. |
Your self-answer is correct, but I am not a lawyer. Note the section about license in the Slycot README: it is possible to switch to BSD-3-Clause if we get explicit permission from all authors. |
Sadly, interpreting the relevance/consequences of GPL can be complicated. Notes:
|
Ok, I see, thanks. The point is that private organizations prefer to stay on the safe side and generally the utilization of open-source software is forbidden. However, some permissive companies allow the solely utilization of MIT-like licenses open source software, and typically utilization of GPL license software is blacklisted. In python-control specific case, the situation is a bit on the grey zone, since the statements around slycot could be further clarified. Such uncertainty would be enough to forbid employees to use python-control package. That would be a pity IMO. Perhaps it could be good to add some clearer and sharp notes explaining when the gpl constraints apply and how to avoid fall into that use-case in the README file? I am thinking to further stress this aspect through a statement like the following: "If you are not allowed to use GPL licensed software just don't install slycot. |
See also python-control/Slycot#152, #928 |
It looks like that python-control (BSD license) relies on slycot (GPL license). Shouldn't python-control be released under GPL license as well?
The text was updated successfully, but these errors were encountered: