<div dir="ltr">Hi,<div><br></div><div>I don't think you need to do anything special if you want to add Openbabel as an optional dependency. We already have a GPL optional dependency: FFTW. This doesn't effect the source of Gromacs or gmx binaries without the optional feature enabled are licensed under LGPL. If you compile Gromacs with the GPL version of FFTW (=you don't own a commercial FFTW license) and then distribute (remember the GPL clause only triggers when you distribute - what you do without distributing doesn't matter) the resulting binary with the FFTW included then this derived work is licensed automatically under GPL. I think if you distribute Gromacs compiled against FFTW but without including the FFTW shared libraries, then I think it doesn't qualify as derived work, and thus the binary still would be LGPL and not automatically GPL.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Roland</div>
</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Feb 6, 2014 at 3:58 PM, David van der Spoel <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:spoel@xray.bmc.uu.se" target="_blank">spoel@xray.bmc.uu.se</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Hi,<br>
<br>
I'm considering the following option:<br>
<br>
what if gromacs would sport a second binary apart from "gmx" that would<br>
be licensed under the GPLv2 license and hence be able to link to other<br>
GPL libraries?<br>
<br>
The advantage would be that we can e.g. link to openbabel, and in this<br>
manner read in gaussian files (I have for instance a tool that creates a<br>
GAFF topology for small molecules from gaussian files). Linux<br>
distributors could distribute the package without problems as far as I see.<br>
<br>
Any drawbacks?<br>
<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br>
--<br>
David van der Spoel, Ph.D., Professor of Biology<br>
Dept. of Cell & Molec. Biol., Uppsala University.<br>
Box 596, 75124 Uppsala, Sweden. Phone: <a href="tel:%2B46184714205" value="+46184714205">+46184714205</a>.<br>
<a href="mailto:spoel@xray.bmc.uu.se">spoel@xray.bmc.uu.se</a> <a href="http://folding.bmc.uu.se" target="_blank">http://folding.bmc.uu.se</a><br>
--<br>
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</font></span></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br>ORNL/UT Center for Molecular Biophysics <a href="http://cmb.ornl.gov">cmb.ornl.gov</a><br>865-241-1537, ORNL PO BOX 2008 MS6309
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