Hey Pau, 2008/11/7 Pau Garcia i Quiles <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: >> Dushan Savich wrote: >>> It would be a lot easier to just deploy ExtJS 2.02 with witty , >>> wouldn't it :) ? >>> Dushan >>> >> Dushan, >> >> Consider the licensing issues involved. > > Now that's a good question, really. > > ExtJS used to be LGPLv2 + commercial, then moved to GPLv3 + commercial. > > Wt is GPLv2 + commercial. > > And I wonder why Wt is not licensed under the GPLv3, too, given that > the GPLv3 would protect Emweb from people developing applications and > not redistributing them, which is, I would say, extremely usual in web > applications. Say, for instance, eBay, Google or Yahoo decide to start > using Wt: as they are not distributing their source, the GPLv2 does > not require them to distribute their source or buy Wt licenses, but > the GPLv2 would require them to distribute their source or buy Wt > licenses. > > Koen, Wim? >
IANAL (although I managed a lengthy response :-) ), but, I was not aware that GPLv3 also has specific clauses to protect web applications. It was my understanding that this was why there is the (now GNU) Affero Public License. From that license (http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/agpl-3.0.html): "The GNU General Public License permits making a modified version and letting the public access it on a server without ever releasing its source code to the public. The GNU Affero General Public License is designed specifically to ensure that, in such cases, the modified source code becomes available to the community. ..." In the first months, Wt started out with an Affero Public License, but we abandoned it for GPL because we found that license too restrictive. Going back (and tightening license conditions) is a complete no-no. But why would we even consider to go back? I believe the GPL is working fine for us. If a big company ever decides to start Wt, good for them. I would not like to make distinction between small or big companies. Who knows, small may be big one day and vice-versa :-). But more seriously, if a big company decides to start using GPL Wt (assuming they are not already) and makes it available on a public web site, that would be probably great news for anyone: for both developers and users of Wt as it increases the visibility and community (eyes for bugs and ideas for features). So far, Emweb does well (as a commercial company) and has sufficient resources and time to invest in development and support of Wt (but hey, both you and us would like to see more and better Wt, so keep buying those licenses and support contracts!), and nobody knows what the future is like, but at least we are enjoying ourselves so far. As to redistributing ExtJS with Wt: ExtJS has a sorry history of licensing issues, where they clearly had licensed their product in a way (first BSD, then LGPL) that was not their intention. It is therefore not sure how they would feel about us redistributing it now, but at the time (around the release of ExtJS 2.0) they indicated that they preferred not. Had we know from the start the licensing issues around ExtJS, Wt::Ext would perhaps not have existed. ExtJS was useful for Wt to jumpstart our support for many advanced controls, and we will keep on supporting the current widgets, but at the same time we believe there is a big advantage in developing native Wt widgets, both technically (they can be more naturally extended in C++) and business-wise (since then we are in control of the feature-set and understand their ins and outs). Regards, koen ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's challenge Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK & win great prizes Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100&url=/ _______________________________________________ witty-interest mailing list witty-interest@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/witty-interest
