I was first filled with joy when I read the press release of the
['open sourceing' of NASA's ROVER software|http://www-robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/news/newsStory.cfm?NewsID=69],
[CLARAty|http://claraty.jpl.nasa.gov].
Last time I saw a presentation about this software was at the robot software development track at ICRA '05 in Barcelona. A question from the audience ( ok, it was me) was raised where this software could be downloaded. The answer was that it would be made available soon, possibly under the GPL or a similar license.
Today, two years later, reading the release notes, it seemed all very promissing as planning and device driver software became available to the Linux robotics
community. Well, promissing, yes, delivering: no. According to the
[license|http://claraty.jpl.nasa.gov/man/software/license/open_src/index.php],
__CLARAty is incompatiblewith the GPL__. CLARAty can not be used for commercial activities:
(quote from their website:)
{{{
The Software shall not be used for commercial production or
sale of any commercial product or derivative incorporating the Software.
Should the user desire to use the Software for any such commercial
purpose, the user must contact the Office of Technology Transfer at
Caltech to obtain permissions and pay the appropriate royalty
}}}
The reason that CLARAty is incompatible with the GPL is that it is too restrictive. Licenses that take away user rights are not compatible with licenses, such as the GPL that enforce user rights.
Don't waste your time on that software as you may not use it with other GPL software.