[Kstars-devel] NGC/IC catalog

[Heiko Evermann]

Hi Jason,

it really is a pity that this legal stuff takes so much time.

>>I have been attempting to find a replacement for our NGC/IC catalog,
>>because the one we are currently using is free for non-commercial use only.
>> I found a really nice version by Wolfgang Steinicke that includes
>>modernizations and corrections verified by him personally.  Unfortunately,
>>this one is also FFNCU.  I emailed Herr Steinicke to ask him if he was
>>interested in releasing a version of his catalog under a GPL-compatible
>>license, trying to explain the situation as best as I could.  He simply
>>replied that since KStars was non-commercial, there was no problem in using
>>his catalog under its current license.
>>
Now this might indicate that Herr Steinicke does not object using his 
data in kstars. So perhaps you and he are just having a communication 
problem? What does he (http://www.ngcic.com/steinicke/default.htm) mean 
by commercial use? Wouldn't a parallel GPL licence for his data be 
non-commercial in his opinion? Perhaps it might be worth explaining to 
him again, why we need a GPLed version of his data? I think it might not 
be worth compiling another duplicate of his data which might even be 
incomplete, if the licence problems could be resolved at the root (i.e. 
the author of that list)...


Heiko