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akiyamalab / MEGADOCK

An ultra-high-performance protein-protein docking for heterogeneous supercomputers
http://www.bi.cs.titech.ac.jp/megadock/
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Clarify license #22

Closed ostrokach closed 1 year ago

ostrokach commented 4 years ago

Currently, this project appears to be licensed under the "Apache-2.0" license, which allows commercial work.

However, in your README, you state that "This software and derivatives are NOT allowed for any commercial use without formal prior authorization."

Could you clarify this discrepancy? If the README is correct, I think the LICENSE file should be adjusted accordingly and should no longer be "Apache-2.0".

(thanks for the great project, btw :))

biochem-fan commented 3 years ago

Moreover, Apache 2.0 license is incompatible with linking to FFTW (GPL).

tonets commented 2 years ago

Thank you so much for your important point.

We apologize for any inappropriate restrictions we have placed on you due to our misunderstanding of the license. MEGADOCK is software for which the Tokyo Institute of Technology now holds the copyright and licensing. Due to the wishes of the copyright holder, MEGADOCK is restricted to non-commercial use. We have decided to change the distribution license of MEGADOCK to CC BY-NC 4.0 to address this issue.

We also interpret the consistency with FFTW3, which is GPLv3 licensed software, as irrelevant as we do not include FFTW3 code in this repository. If we wish to distribute FFTW3-linked object code, that object code should be licensed under GPLv3. However, we do not intend to do so and are releasing it as a source code that does not contain FFTW3 code. If you have a more appropriate legal interpretation or precedent, please let us know.

biochem-fan commented 2 years ago

Thank you very much for clarification.

If you have a more appropriate legal interpretation or precedent, please let us know.

This is indeed a tricky point; I think the best (and safest) option is to ask the FFTW developers.

biochem-fan commented 2 years ago

FYI: https://twitter.com/eriklindahl/status/1539570970423328769