Re: [Help-glpk] GLPK GUROBI wrapper

[Robbie Morrison]

Hello list, hello Matteo

> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Subject:      Re: [Help-glpk] GLPK GUROBI wrapper
> From:         Andrew Makhorin
> Date:         Wed, 23 Feb 2011 22:58:42 +0300
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Wed, 2011-02-23 at 20:30 +0100, glpk xypron wrote:
>> Hello Matteo,
>>
>> running your code would violate the license of GLPK
>> because Gurobi is not licensed under a license
>> compatible to the Gnu Public License.
>>
>> Please, observe that Andrew chose to publish GLPK
>> under GPL and not LGPL.
>>
>> Best regards
>>
>> Xypron
>
> It depends on how Gurobi (which is highly proprietary
> software) is used within the wrapper assuming that the
> wrapper itself is distributed under the GNU GPL or a
> compatible license. I think that in this case Gurobi
> can be considered as a plug-in, so the following
> answers the question:
> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLAndPlugins

I read thru 'wrapper_gurobi.c' carefully:

  http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-glpk/2011-02/txtgH2ubVmjpc.txt

It seems to me that the final paragraph in the GNU
GPLAndPlugins section applies, which means this
constitutes a "borderline case".  Moreover Matteo's
program could probably be re-written in a scripting
language to enforce any necessary separations.
Hence my initial thought is that Matteo's code is
acceptable.

Although not a legal consideration, I don't see
this single C file, released under the GPLv2, as
undermining GLPK in any way.  Or am I missing
something?

If 'wrapper_gurobi.c' is deemed okay, then I will put
an entry for it in the GLPK wikibook.

Whatever the decision, I would like to record my
appreciation to Matteo for attempting to contribute
back to the GLPK ecosystem. Cheers!

Robbie
---
Robbie Morrison
PhD student -- policy-oriented energy system simulation
Technical University of Berlin (TU-Berlin), Germany
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