PanoTools:
Re: PTGui 5.0beta3
JD Smith 2005-Sep-13 22:08:24
On Tue, 13 Sep 2005 19:03:15 +0000, GregStumph wrote:
>> I'm not aware of the implementation details of PTGui's new
>> functionality, but it is absolutely obvious to me that at the very least
>> it inherited a great deal of motivation and context from the free tools
>> Enblend, PanoTools, AutoPano-sift etc.
>
> Just to clarify, the SIFT algorithm used in Autopano-sift is
> patent-encumbered in the US (see the License section of
> http://user.cs.tu-berlin.de/~nowozin/autopano-sift/).
The potential, as of yet unawarded patent on SIFT is unrelated to
copyright. Just because a GPL'd program overlaps patents doesn't mean it
is invalid. The Linux Kernel, for instance, is said to overlap hundreds
of different patents. I think the GPL writers are considering addressing
the relatively recently created issue of software patents in their GPL v3.
Patent issues should give users and software writers alike pause, but they
are not the same as copyright issues.
> Also, parts of the original Panotools suite were never released as source
> code, if I recall correctly (PTStitcher, PTOptimizer, etc.). So these
> parts at least had to be re-implemented if someone wanted to change/add to
> their functionality.
Prof. Dersch was free to release his source code, or not, since he is
the ultimate copyright holder. In fact, he could re-release under a
different license, or no license at all, or write a GUI front-end
himself that is closed source, with no copyright implications
whatsoever. That's because he owns the copyright. As a user of
the PanoTools library, on the other hand, you would be bound by the GPL
license he released under. So, any tools you wrote to replace PTStitcher
etc., would have to be released under the GPL (as is `nona', Hugin's free
PTStitcher replacement).
Re-implementation and modification of GPL'd code is not the problem;
in fact it's highly encouraged. The problem comes when GPL'd code (in
legal terms), or the concepts it codifies (in general fairness terms)
are locked up in closed source programs. Is it possible to write from
scratch a closed-source program which has all the flexibility and
capabilities of PanoTools? Yes, of course. Would that have happened
in the absence of the freely available PanoTools library, which gave
birth to this entire constellation of tools? I don't believe so.
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
Get Bzzzy! (real tools to help you find a job). Welcome to the Sweet Life.
http://us.click.yahoo.com/A77XvD/vlQLAA/TtwFAA/.Cr1lB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PanoTools/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
#removed#
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/