Engys - Proprietary open-source???
 

Hello everybody,
A good Morning to you all.

Just a quick request... can someone please explain the meaning / implication of this line on the Engys Website?

ENGYS is delighted to announce the release v3.0.3 of HELYX, a general-purpose Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software solution for engineering design and optimisation based on ENGYS' own proprietary open-source simulation engine (HELYX-Core).


Source:
https://engys.com/news/2165/engys-re...for-enterprise

What is proprietary open-source?

Thank you.

Regards,
Philippose

Dear Philippose,

I checked with the person responsible for writing the release blurb. According to them, they used the term "proprietary" in the context of the dictionary definition:

"Proprietary goods are made and sent out by a particular company whose name is on the product."

However, given the traditional use of "proprietary" in the context of the OpenFOAM community, I can see how this statement could lead to people getting the wrong idea. I have asked the team to refrain from using the word in this context in future.

Certainly, the software in question is (to the best of our knowledge) 100% compliant with the GPL and applicable copyright law (i.e. there is no miss-attribution, obfuscation, NDAs , binary-only demos or any other funny business).

I hope this clarifies the issue for you.

Best regards,

Eugene de Villiers

(Managing Director, Engys)

Hello Eugene,
A Good Morning to you.

Thank you very much for your reply, and for clarifying the usage of the term "proprietary open-source". In my opinion it would be better not to use this phrase in the future since it will definitely lead to a lot of confusion.

So, just to get it right... Helyx-Core is an open-source software licensed under the GPL (which version of GPL)?

The only thing I am curious about is, that I am unable to find any location where the source code for Helyx-Core is available. I understand that only paying customers of Engys would have the opportunity to download the source-code. However, it is still interesting that nothing has landed up in the public domain yet.

Wish you a good weekend ahead.

Regards,
Philippose

For those who are interested in the matter, and come across this thread:

https://www.cfd-online.com/Forums/op...-openfoam.html