Re: [gnugo-devel] GUI that can play Gnu Go

[Paul Pogonyshev]

> I am the author of the free SGF viewer/editor -- MultiGo.

Please, pay attention to the difference between "free" and "freeware".
This is especially important if you are going to distribute GNU Go,
which _is_ free software.

        http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

> In the next version of MultiGo, I have added the feature that users
> can play with Gnu Go through GMP. Is it OK to provide local download
> of Gnu Go on my webpage? Also, is it OK to pack Gnu Go executable in
> the setup of MultiGo?

Yes, it is OK, but there are conditions.  First of all, you will need
to state in a clean way that GNU Go is a separate program, licensed
under GNU GPL (with a link, e.g. to http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html).
You must also mention that it is copyrighted by Free Software Foundation.

Next, you must place GNU Go sources of the very same version used to
build binary (executable) on your site.  You don't need to force users
to download the sources (i.e. binary-only downloads are absolutely OK),
but if a user chooses to download sources, you must provide him with
a way to do so.

You can put GNU Go binary in your setup utility, but again, you need to
provide all the information mentioned above somewhere in a visible place.
I.e.,  information about license and copyright and information about where
a user can get the sources (either from your site or from GNU Go site).

I see that you already provide GNU Go download.  Please, do add what is
listed above to be GNU GPL compliant.  Also, please change the links to
GNU Go main and development pages to

        http://www.gnu.org/software/gnugo/gnugo.html

and

        http://www.gnu.org/software/gnugo/devel.html

respectively.

We would appreciate if you change "Gnu Go" strings to "GNU Go".  That's
how the program is named.

Finally, regarding GMP.  You have chosen a wrong protocol.  If you ever
feel like improving GNU Go support in your program, have a look at GTP,
which is considerably simpler than GMP yet provides way more
functionality.  See

        http://www.lysator.liu.se/~gunnar/gtp/

Paul