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--- 2004-12-21 Release 7.0.1 ---
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While with the new release numbering scheme it will be rare to see a
release with an odd minor patch number, in many ways this is a major
BRL-CAD release with the package entering the realm of Open Source
software. Likewise, the project moves a new public website as well as
adopts a SourceForge project site. With the migration of the project
to SourceForge, new forums, mailing lists, bug tracking, feature
requests, support mechanisms, task management, and news announcement
channels all become instantly available.
OPEN SOURCE
This marks the first release of BRL-CAD as Open Source software. It
has taken several years and much hard work by many people to actually
make this happen. Special thanks goes out to the U.S. Army Research
Laboratory for giving back to the community by allowing BRL-CAD to be
released as Open Source software under the Open Source Initiative
(OSI) approved NASA Open Source Agreement (NOSA). The "release"
solely exists in CVS -- binary and source distributions will remain
unprepared.
The majority of BRL-CAD is covered by the GNU General Public License.
The BRL-CAD libraries (src/lib*) are all provided under the GNU Lesser
General Public License. The documentation is provided under the terms
of the GNU Free Documentation License. The build infrastructure and
supporting scripts are covered by the Berkeley Software Distribution
license or are in the public domain. Given the vast size, complexity,
and varied usage needs of BRL-CAD's source code and supporting data,
all of the aforementioned licenses allow for a greater degree of
flexibility in how they may be used.
See the individual files in question and the COPYING file for more
details. The licenses are intended to foster and encourage
improvements to BRL-CAD and the Open Source community as a whole
without taking away from the package's heritage and history. See the
COPYING file for more details and information.
