From: John Stone (johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu)
Date: Mon Jul 06 2009 - 21:45:27 CDT

Hi,
  To get the ball rolling, I have tagged the key plugin related
VMD source files (PluginMgr.* vmddlopen.* ResizeArray.h MolFilePlugin.*)
as being provided under the UIUC open source license:
  *
  * LICENSE:
  * UIUC Open Source License
  * http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/plugins/pluginlicense.html
  *

That should allow you to get started using the code without further delay.

Once I get the VMD 1.8.7 release completed, I would be happy to work with
you on making the code easier to incorporate into other packages. It should
be pretty straightforward already, but undoubtably it's a bit VMD-centric
at present.

Cheers,
  John Stone
  vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu

On Mon, Jul 06, 2009 at 05:19:52AM -0400, Roland Schulz wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 5, 2009 at 9:14 PM, John Stone <johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>
> Hi,
> On Sat, Jul 04, 2009 at 09:13:37AM -0400, Roland Schulz wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > is our understanding correct that the 10% clause in VMD is not GPL
> > compatible?
>
> It is compatible in that you're free to use it for anything you want,
> but, that said, you would not be able to re-license it as GPL code.
> So while you're free to use it, it would remain governed under its
> original license, just as code using the BSD license, UIUC open source
> license, and other licenses remain under their original license.
>
> We don't want to re-license in the sense of removing the current license
> but adding GPL as an additional license, so that the whole package can be
> used under one license. (see below for additional option)
>
> My understand is that the UIUC license allows that. Is that correct? FSF
> lists the UIUC as GPL compatible.
>
> My understanding is that the VMD license does not allow that, because the
> 10% clause can't be combined with GPL. Since the right of the licensee to
> combine any software is in conflict with the licensor right to prohibit
> combining packaged resulting to more than 10%.
>
>
> Also, it is true that if ten different people each borrowed 10% of the
> code,
> that you'd be violating the original license to incorporate those
> ten different 10%s into a single code base. I would not see a problem
> with us making modules like vmddlopen.[c] Plugin*.[Ch] etc available
> under the UIUC open source license (BSD derivative) however, if that
> would make it easier for you to use the VMD plugin APIs in other
> packages.
>
> I think this would help us a lot.
>
>
> There's nothing particularly magical or proprietary in
> the plugin-related source code in VMD, so I would be happy to
> accomodate this if it made things easier for you and others to use
> the VMD plugin APIs.
>
> That would be great.
>
>
> I have already been planning on reengineering things a bit so that
> the interesting parts of PluginMgr.* were migrated to the plugin
> source tree and compiled into the static molfile_plugin.a so
> that the same plugin management code would be shared by
> VMD, NAMD, psfgen, cionize, and any other tools that wanted to
> make significant use of plugins, particularly the dynamically
> loaded shared library variety of plugins, which is the only case
> that's very tricky.
>
> That would be an alternative. My current plan (proposed by Axel Kohlmeyer
> - thanks!) is to integrate the PluginMgr in the source. Thus the VMD
> header or libraries would not be needed at compile time. And if the
> Plugins (as shared libraries) would be available at run-time additional
> formats could be read.
> If the PluginMgr would be part of the static library, it would be needed
> at compile time. Thus it might be little bit less convenient for the user,
> but only barely so.
>
> So in case you would prefer not to change the license for PuginMgr to UIUC
> license or would prefer us not to distribute it in our source, we could
> use the compile time option.
>
> If this would address your needs, let me know and I would be happy
> to begin working on this with you.
>
> Yes both option would be great. Let me know which one you prefer.
>
> Thanks a lot
>
> Roland
>
>
> Cheers,
> John Stone
> vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu
>
> >
> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > From: Erik Lindahl <lindahl_at_cbr.su.se>
> >
> > 1) We need to be able to distribute the code as GPL/LGPL (instead
> of a
> > combination of licenses). The 10% clause probably doesn't fly with
> this,
> > since the one could imagine 10 different people copy 10% each,
> distribute
> > as GPL, then somebody else (who gets it under strict GPL, where
> there
> > cannot be side clauses) merges it and has the original code under
> GPL.
> > ------------------------------------------------
> >
> > If so, is there a chance that you could release a PluginMgr
> equivalent
> > example code under a GPL compatible license (e.g. University of
> Illinois
> > Open Source License). That would allow other GPL software packages
> to
> > easily use the VMD plugins.
> >
> > Roland
> >
> > --
> > ORNL/UT Center for Molecular Biophysics cmb.ornl.gov
> > 865-241-1537, ORNL PO BOX 2008 MS6309
>
> --
> NIH Resource for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics
> Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
> University of Illinois, 405 N. Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
> Email: johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu Phone: 217-244-3349
> WWW: http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/ Fax: 217-244-6078
>
> --
> ORNL/UT Center for Molecular Biophysics cmb.ornl.gov
> 865-241-1537, ORNL PO BOX 2008 MS6309

-- 
NIH Resource for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics
Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
University of Illinois, 405 N. Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
Email: johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu                 Phone: 217-244-3349
  WWW: http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/      Fax: 217-244-6078