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NVIDIA / warp

A Python framework for high performance GPU simulation and graphics
https://nvidia.github.io/warp/
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warp 0.13.0 License clarification #186

Closed traversaro closed 2 months ago

traversaro commented 3 months ago

Hello warp authors, thanks a lot for working on warp and changing license to allow commercial usage (see https://github.com/NVIDIA/warp/releases/tag/v0.13.0).

Together with @flferretti we are mantaing the conda-forge package of warp, and we wanted to understand how to properly document this new license, in particular using SPDX

I see that the new license is reference as "NVIDIA Software License" (see for example https://github.com/NVIDIA/warp/blob/9b2a57f7268e8523c24eec1625c6d08548e5c60c/pyproject.toml#L12). However, I am not finding any reference to this "NVIDIA Software License". Is that a "generic" license used by NVIDIA, or it is something warp-specific? If it is warp specific, could it make sense to call it with a warp-specific name, to avoid ambiguity wit the software license of other NVIDIA libraries?

Thanks in advance for the answer!

shi-eric commented 2 months ago

Hi @traversaro, looking at our internal guidance, I think SPDX-License-Identifier: LicenseRef-NvidiaProprietary is the appropriate identifier to use here.

traversaro commented 2 months ago

Thanks a lot @shi-eric ! I just have a comment on this.

Hi @traversaro, looking at our internal guidance, I think SPDX-License-Identifier: LicenseRef-NvidiaProprietary is the appropriate identifier to use here.

Based on https://spdx.github.io/spdx-spec/v2.3/other-licensing-information-detected/, ""LicenseRef-"[idstring] where [idstring] is a unique string containing letters, numbers, . and/or -." it seems that the license used by warp is quite warp-specific, and Nvidia employies for its source available software many prorietary licenses, that are all different. Using LicenseRef-NvidiaProprietary seems a bit risky to me, as it seems to be highly probably that people will use it to refer to other (but different) licenses used for proprietary Nvidia software. What do you think on this? Could it make sense to use a more warp-specific idstring?

shi-eric commented 2 months ago

Hi @traversaro, I just double-checked with Legal after your last question. I'm told that LicenseRef-NvidiaProprietary is used as a "catch-all" and is indeed the correct one to use for Warp.

traversaro commented 2 months ago

Thanks @shi-eric! Personally I am not sure how the use of a "catch-all" code for referring to different licenses can be compatible with Clause 10 of SPDX v2.30 spec, but I guess the Nvidia position is now clear, thanks for the clarification!