Re: [ng-spice-devel] proposal for the letter development
Manu Rouat wrote:
>
> >
> > The problem we have is with the current Spice3f5 license. Although this
> > license has allowed many companies to release their own proprietary
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> > simulators, it is too restrictive to allow it to be used with other
> > free software. The problem is that it only allows use for "educational,
> > research and non-profit purposes" thereby restricting commercial use.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> This isn't consistent - - I believe that the core of the spice simulator
> was used by commercial vendors with the explicit permission of Berkeley
> (or perhaps they changed the license more recently).
Thanks Manu, I agree that this is inconsistent. I have removed it from
the new version below as it really had no bearing on our request.
I also added a link to the GPL so they don't have to go looking for it.
Paulo, is this letter being sent by email or snail mail? If its by
snail mail (which may be better as it seems more official) maybe
you should print out the GPL and add it as an attachment (snail mail
variety).
Ciao,
Erik
---
Dear Prof. Alberto Sangiovanni Vincentelli,
We are a voluntary group of engineers/researchers/students who would
like
continue development of the electronic simulator Spice. We have a web
page at :
http://ieee.ing.uniroma1.it/ngspice/
Although the Spice program you helped to create is no longer being
supported or actively developed by The University of California at
Berkeley,
it remains a standard for electronic circuit design. However, over the
last decade, several other products (many commercial and based
originally
on Spice) have surpassed it, in speed, versatility and up to date
process
support.
The goal of our project is to start with the last UCB version, Spice3f5,
and update it to add new features, improve the user interface, improve
the simulation speed and accuracy and improve the compatibility with
other Spice variants. Our aims include making this project free, open
source software much like the Linux kernel and the GNU utilities.This
would allow everyone including researchers and students to have access
to a cheap (free), extensible, electronic simulator.
The problem we have is with the current Spice3f5 license. This license
is too restrictive to allow it to be used with other free software. The
problem is that it only allows use for "educational, research and
non-profit purposes" thereby restricting commercial use. This makes it
incompatible with free software licenses such as the GNU General Public
License (GPL). There are two GPL licensed libraries (readline for
improved command line handling and the GNU Scientific Library) which
would greatly help our development efforts but which cannot be used
with Spice3f5 unless the Spice3f5 license is changed. The GNU General
Pubic License may be viewed here:
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
We also note that some have been referring to the Spice license as a BSD
license although this seems not to be the case. There have been a number
of
different licenses issued by the University of California, including the
numerous different BSD licenses, some (but not all) of which are
compatible
with the GPL.
Recently we heard that Dean Hal Varian had convinced the University of
California, in June 1999, to issue a 'new style' BSD License for the BSD
operating system source code. It is our understanding that this new
style
license is GPL compatible and if the Spice3f5 license was changed to
this
one, it would allow us to use Spice3f5 code and code licensed under the
GPL in the same piece of software while the rights of other Spice3 users
will remain as they are. Another possibility is to modify the current
license to allow any use, or alternatively, to allow the the Spice3f5
code to be used either under the current license or the GPL as the user
pleases. Under all of these schemes, the copyright of the existing code
remains with the University of California and the authors of any new
code
would hold the copyright of their contributions.
Therefore, our question is: would it be possible for you (or rather for
the University of California, the Spice3f5 copyright holder) to modify
the license of Spice3f5 in one of the ways mentioned above? Doing so
would
allow the creation of a new improved Spice program which would be freely
available to everyone interested in using it.
We look forward to hearing from you.
With all our regards,
The NG-Spice Team
Paolo Nenzi
Michael Widlok
etc.....
http://ieee.ing.uniroma1.it/ngspice
--
+-------------------------------------------------+
Erik de Castro Lopo erikd@zip.com.au
+-------------------------------------------------+
Percussive Maintenance: The fine art of whacking the c**p out
of an electronic device to get it to work again.
Partial thread listing:
- Re: [ng-spice-devel] proposal for the letter development, (continued)
Francesco Doni