Re: octave->gnuplot->fig->eps

[John W. Eaton]

On 30-Apr-2005, Mike Miller wrote:

| I just happened to read the following about gnuplot in the gnuplot FAQ:
| 
|     Gnuplot is neither written nor maintained by the FSF. It is not covered
|     by the General Public License, either. It used to be distributed by the
|     FSF, however, due to licensing issues it is no longer.
| 
|     Gnuplot is freeware in the sense that you don't have to pay for it.
|     However it is not freeware in the sense that you would be allowed to
|     distribute a modified version of your gnuplot freely. Please read and
|     accept the Copyright file in your distribution.

I don't think this is quite correct.

You can find the gnuplot copyright here:

  
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/gnuplot/gnuplot/Copyright?rev=1.2&view=markup

The entire text is

  /*[
   * Copyright 1986 - 1993, 1998, 2004   Thomas Williams, Colin Kelley
   *
   * Permission to use, copy, and distribute this software and its
   * documentation for any purpose with or without fee is hereby granted,
   * provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and
   * that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear
   * in supporting documentation.
   *
   * Permission to modify the software is granted, but not the right to
   * distribute the complete modified source code.  Modifications are to
   * be distributed as patches to the released version.  Permission to
   * distribute binaries produced by compiling modified sources is granted,
   * provided you
   *   1. distribute the corresponding source modifications from the
   *    released version in the form of a patch file along with the binaries,
   *   2. add special version identification to distinguish your version
   *    in addition to the base release version number,
   *   3. provide your name and address as the primary contact for the
   *    support of your modified version, and
   *   4. retain our contact information in regard to use of the base
   *    software.
   * Permission to distribute the released version of the source code along
   * with corresponding source modifications in the form of a patch file is
   * granted with same provisions 2 through 4 for binary distributions.
   *
   * This software is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty
   * to the extent permitted by applicable law.
  ]*/


Note that you are allowed to distribute modified versions of gnuplot
in either binary or source form, but you must distribute your changes
as patches relative to some released version.  This may be
inconvenient, but it does allow distribution of modified versions of
gnuplot.  So this is a free software license, but it is incompatible
with the GPL because it includes additional restrictions not present
in the GPL.  This is OK for Octave because Octave is not linked with
gnuplot.

Perhaps the reason the FAQ entry is wrong is because the original
gnuplot copyright statement said

  /*
   * Copyright (C) 1986 - 1993   Thomas Williams, Colin Kelley
   *
   * Permission to use, copy, and distribute this software and its
   * documentation for any purpose with or without fee is hereby granted,
   * provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and
   * that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear
   * in supporting documentation.
   *
   * Permission to modify the software is granted, but not the right to
   * distribute the modified code.  Modifications are to be distributed
   * as patches to released version.
   *
   * This software is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty.
   *
   *
   * AUTHORS
   *
   *   Original Software:
   *     Thomas Williams,  Colin Kelley.
   *
   *   Gnuplot 2.0 additions:
   *       Russell Lang, Dave Kotz, John Campbell.
   *
   *   Gnuplot 3.0 additions:
   *       Gershon Elber and many others.
   *
   * Send your comments or suggestions to
   *  address@hidden
   * This is a mailing list; to join it send a note to
   *  address@hidden
   * Send bug reports to
   *  address@hidden
   */

There seems to be a contradiction here

   * Permission to modify the software is granted, but not the right to
   * distribute the modified code.  Modifications are to be distributed
   * as patches to released version.

because the first sentence says you can't distribute the modified code
but the second says you can, if you do it in the form of a released
version plus patches (user does the patch).  But I think people
generally understood this to mean that you could distribute modified
versions of gnuplot provided that you required the user to apply the
patches.

As I recall, this version of the copyright was also generally
interpreted to mean that third parties could only distribute source
patches and not binaries built from the modified sources.  That caused
some trouble and was fixed in the later copyright statement.

jwe



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