Add license to repo

[jhamman]

Here is a good reference (set up by the folks at GitHub) on the different types of licenses available: http://choosealicense.com

We probably should go with a GPL license that

... is a copyleft license that requires anyone who distributes your code or a derivative work to make the source available under the same terms. V3 is similar to V2, but further restricts use in hardware that forbids software alterations.

It is also probably a good idea to add a piece of the license to the header of each source code file.

Related: #48

[jhamman]

I've added the GNU GPL v2.0 to the repo. We still need to add something regarding the license to the header of the source code files but that should be done as part of #48.

[bartnijssen]

Why gpl v2 rather than v3?

On Sep 26, 2014, at 6:41 PM, Joe Hamman notifications@github.com wrote:

I've added the GNU GPL v2.0 to the repo. We still need to add something regarding the license to the header of the source code files but that should be done as part of #48.

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[jhamman]

V2 is less restrictive which obviously has its pros and cons but my understanding is that this is the main difference:

V3 is similar to V2, but further restricts use in hardware that forbids software alterations.

[bartnijssen]

It doesn't forbids alterations as far as I know but requires that you share them which makes sense to me for scientific open-source. We picked v3 for SUMMA. let me take another look and leave the issue open for now.

On Sep 26, 2014, at 7:37 PM, Joe Hamman notifications@github.com wrote:

V2 is less restrictive which obviously has its pros and cons but my understanding is that this is the main difference:

V3 is similar to V2, but further restricts use in hardware that forbids software alterations.

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[bartnijssen]

Since VIC has been around for a long time and people are using it for many purposes already, we'll leave the more permissive V2 license.

[jhamman]

Sounds good. We can always change the license at a later date if need be.

[bartnijssen]

True - although that would not be the preferred way as people need to know whether they can use the model for a specific purpose going forward.