Licensing question

[sbar...@gmail.com]

Hi, 

I have made my sds-011 extension as a weewx service. However, I based the extension from matthewwall sds011 driver. Original code was GPL v3, and I changed it to MIT.

Is this going to be a problem? I had to make a few changes to the code for python3. Is the sds-011 maintained?

Is this group the proper way of contacting M. Wall for this kind of questions?

Regards;

[Greg Troxel]

"sbar...@gmail.com" <sbar...@gmail.com> writes:

> I have made my sds-011 extension as a weewx service. However, I based the
> extension from matthewwall sds011 driver. Original code was GPL v3, and I
> changed it to MIT.

I cannot speak for mwall, and IANAL, I'm not your lawyer, TINLA, etc.
But I frequently rant about licensing.

If you take someone else's code, available under some license, and you
modify/extend it, you have created a derivative work under copyright
law. That derivative work may only be copied if there is a license
from the creator (copyright owner) of the original work and from you,
the creator of the derivative work.

The GPL says that derivative works can only be copied if they are
licensed under the GPL (speaking roughly).

> Is this going to be a problem?

So modifying GPL code and changing the license to BSD is totally not ok.
Personally, I view it as a huge problem.

>I had to make a few changes to the code for python3. Is the sds-011
>maintained?

Sure, it's normal to make improvements, but this is typically done
within the bounds of respecting licenses.

> Is this group the proper way of contacting M. Wall for this kind of
> questions?

No, but it might work.

[Tom Keffer]

I would tend to agree with Greg. The whole point of the GPL was to allow derivative works to be redistributed. Hence, by definition, you cannot switch your derivative work to an MIT license because that license allows limits to redistribution.

Either change it to GPL, or offer a Pull Request (PR) to Mr. Wall. But, don't try to lock down his work.

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[sbar...@gmail.com]

Changed back to GPLV3 (actually I just had to reverse the wording in the readme, since the actual licence file had not been changed ).

No intend to lock down anyone's work here. My understanding is that MIT is more permissive in terms of what can be done later than GPL, that's why I 'd rather use MIT.

As for PR, I don't think it's possible, since I changed the code from driver to service, unless we can have an extension in weewx that offers both way of working. Would that make sense?

[Tarmo]

This is an extension to WeeWX which works both ways.  https://github.com/bellrichm/WeeWX-MQTTSubscribe

[bell...@gmail.com]

And full disclosure, I was inspired by Matthew’s weewx-owfs driver/service.

- rich

[Vince Skahan]

Agree with Greg.

I don't think you can alter things to remove the GPL v3 requirements.    That was one of the big sticking points of the v2 v3 issues way back when, if I remember correctly.  Back then lots of people didn't like "GPL taint" so to speak, but once the code has a particular license on it, you can't just change what the original author(s) chose. 

[Joel Bion]

Yup. Further, the goal of the MIT and GPL licenses are very different, as far as I understand it (and I am not an expert here, so could be totally wrong!) but from my limited understanding, the MIT license is good for people who want their code to be used by as many as possible. The GPL license is good for people who have a real desire to contribute to an open source world, while simultaneously and explicitly trying to not give the benefits of their contribution to closed-source efforts.

Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 5, 2021, at 2:37 PM, Vince Skahan <vince...@gmail.com> wrote:

Agree with Greg.

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