Bug 41773 - Can GeoGebra really be distributed?
Summary: Can GeoGebra really be distributed?
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: Альт Образование
Classification: Distributions
Component: Ошибки работы (show other bugs)
Version: 8.0
Hardware: x86_64 Linux
: P5 normal
Assignee: Andrey Cherepanov
QA Contact: qa-p8@altlinux.org
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2022-01-22 01:46 MSK by nick20211008
Modified: 2022-01-22 18:12 MSK (History)
1 user (show)

See Also:


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Description nick20211008 2022-01-22 01:46:40 MSK
It looks like a really dangerous precedent of GPL violation in education, so I ask for your help.

I've run into this discussion:

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=692728#37

that states that GeoGebra is a derivative work of SciLab. SciLab is GPL-licensed, and so should be GeoGebra.

But it isn't: https://www.geogebra.org/license/

Even if now GeoGebra is not directly dependent on SciLab, the author of the post states that some version (approx. 4.0.34) is a derivative work from SciLab; thus, GeoGebra 4.0.34 is a GPL software. The current version of GeoGebra is obviously a derivative work of GeoGebra 4.0.34 - and thus it should be under GPL, but it isn't.

In addition to arguments of Stuart Prescott from the link above, I should stress that some source code in GeoGebra repo is marked as non-free:

https://github.com/geogebra/geogebra/blob/master/web/src/main/resources/org/geogebra/web/resources/js/deployggb-template.js

It looks like this JS code is linked to some other JS code generated from GPL-code written in Java; thus, the file above is not under GPL.

See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AGeoGebra


During the Pandemia, such tools as GeoGebra are extremely important for the education around the world. So, it looks like we should do our best to eliminate the GPL violation (if it is really here) and force GeoGebra to publish the code properly.
Comment 1 Michael Shigorin 2022-01-22 18:12:56 MSK
(Ответ для nick20211008 на комментарий #0)
> During the Pandemia, such tools as GeoGebra are extremely important for the
> education around the world. So, it looks like we should do our best to
> eliminate the GPL violation (if it is really here) and force GeoGebra to
> publish the code properly.

Forcing people tends to make them resist -- maybe it could help to (restore? create?) gain productive cooperation between projects so GeoGebra folks see their own reasons in going GPL or going standalone with _their_ own code.

I haven't delved into this particular situation (and don't have time to do so) but have heard of problems with GeoGebra's licensing a few years ago.

They lack Russian among the several dozen languages the site's translated into -- somehow I doubt they'd be wise enough to listen to us.