In article <5gosup$bc6 at news.u-strasbg.fr> pingouin at crystal.u-strasbg.fr (Francois JEANMOUGIN) writes:
> In article <PMR.97Mar19125859 at unst.sanger.ac.uk>,
>pmr at sanger.ac.uk writes:
> [...]
> > As soon as we have the GCG 9.0 source code, the schedule is:
>> Stop, stop, stop. What's that??? Even you, Peter, you don't have
> the gcg9 sources. If GCG claims that the sources were found in several
> (at least one) commercial package, and don't want to send the sources to
> obscur institutions in obscur regions of France (like us), we can
> understand (with difficulties), but I can't understand that they did
> not give the sources to the EBI (at least).
EBI? You mean the Sanger Centre of course :-)
As far as I know, GCG only completed the SDK licence agreement a few
days ago. I first saw a copy on the same day as another site mailed me
to ask about how it affects EGCG, so I think I must have been one of
the first. They have had to work very hard on this. I am fairly sure
it was not part of their original plans for 9.0, but they must protect
their rights to their source code and it takes time to get it right.
The standard SDK licence has restrictions on redistributing software
which have to be amended for EGCG, so that will take a little longer.
As for this mysterious "sources were found in several (at least one)
commercial package", that may not be quite true. The GCG licence
restricts distribution of binaries linked with GCG libraries (that's
why EGCG needs a special licence). It could be that someone just
distributed binaries that were linked to their own copy of GCG. That
does not mean the code would run without GCG. But it would still be
illegal under the SDK (which allows you to create and run software,
but not to distribute it).
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Rice | Informatics Division,
E-mail: pmr at sanger.ac.uk | The Sanger Centre,
Tel: (44) 1223 494967 | Wellcome Trust Genome Campus,
Fax: (44) 1223 494919 | Hinxton, Cambridge, CB10 1SA,
URL: http://www.sanger.ac.uk/~pmr/ | England
