Re: [REVISED] Re: first (very crude) stab at an abstract

[Mark Galassi <rosalia@lanl.gov>]

    Les> Brian Gough last week said: " As for government labs
    Les> endorsing free software, that is a potential can of worms."

    Les> how does this square with GSL being GPL (dude)??????

Dude, GSL was initially developed outside of government labs, and put
under the GPL.  This means that any future contributions to GSL have
to be released under the GPL (under the "derivative works" clause),
even if they come from government labs.  Hmm: the assonance in the
acronyms might be confusing, but I think I got it right.

The issue Brian brought up is *mostly* for software that was developed
entirely in government laboratories.  A famous case right now is
NEdit, which is distributed under a lame "non-commercial use only"
license because Fermilab bureocrats have not yet found a formula for
making it free.

We are hoping that Steve Adler's upcoming conference at Brookhaven can
give use more insight into the issue: he is planning a panel to
discuss it.