Hisham Mardam Bey wrote: > On Thu, Aug 7, 2008 at 7:40 AM, Nick Hughart <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> I still don't understand what about the BSD makes it not always free, >> you can't steal the code, the free code is always there. Even if raster >> wanted to, he could not just up and close the code. He would have to >> make a closed fork and develop it on his own or with others who agree to >> go that route. In that same thread, I don't expect a company to pay >> their employees to just give away everything for free if they are truely >> adding some value to the code that the open source community either >> cannot or doesn't have the desire to. Also, they will have a lot more >> time to add value since they are depending on the community to keep the >> base solid. If they give back, that's great, but not all companies can >> afford to do this and some may just need some time to get on their feet >> before they give back. The BSD license gives them this ability and >> offers them true freedom in their decisions and leaves the moral choice >> in their hands, not the hands of others. A company that chooses to give >> back out of choice is better then one that gives back because they are >> required to do so IMO. >> > > Some people don't want their code forked off and closed away and want > all contributions to come back. This is the difference. >
This sounds a lot like having your cake and eating it too heh. LGPL only stops the company from modifying the lib anyway, any other work they do goes towards their lib. What if they add a bunch of worthless code that only adds hooks to an external binary blob or something? Is that code any use then? I think this limitation is so easily worked around as to make it completely pointless. > >> Also, by introducing an LGPL lib into the community to the point that >> our core BSD libs become dependent on it does hurt things. It's always >> been the assumption that our core libs will be BSD from the bottom up. >> E17 is also licensed BSD. >> > > This is a decision that was made around 10 years ago, we're working on > changing that. > Is there a reason to change it? Has the original decision led to problems? Is switching to the LGPL going to instantly solve our community issues or is it just going to cause more animosity between the developers? A divided community doesn't exactly help get corporate interest brewing either. Plus any company looking into the EFL now may just go elsewhere because they may perceive that the license will change and thus cause them plenty of issues in the long run. > >> If the lib was not core we didn't worry all >> that much about the license used, at least as a community. When it >> comes to the libs that we ship as our crowning achievements, having two >> licenses throughout is just going to drive companies insane. It >> complicates all the legalities involved and they then have to be extra >> careful not to touch any LGPL lib code. Also note how I said LGPL >> coming into the community and not LGPL in general. Generally any LGPL >> lib we depend on now is an indirect dep of another lib we depend on that >> is generally BSD or otherwise similarly licensed (best I can tell >> anyway). Some of the indirect deps like libC are not always GPL either >> as we are not (or should not) be dependent on a single implementation of >> this. After having looked into this more heavily I'm now even more >> concerned by having an LGPL as an immediate dep of Evas and Ecore, two >> of our lowest level libraries. >> > > No one expects anything to happen over the course of a single night, > week, or month. Its going to take some time, and we're going to keep > at it until its done. > > So you're assuming everyone will just give up and accept the LGPL? I highly doubt this will happen so have fun fighting. It's a choice based on ideals. Some of us are not worried about what a company does with our code as we feel like furthering the development of software in any way possible. Getting paid to code software tends to lead to more code generation and if they do decide to give back, that's great, but even if they don't they will have hopefully created a good product that consumers can use based on code that others can help improve. If they completely fork the code and modify it heavily then they've added enough value that it may not even be the same code anymore and possibly not even the same idea. Regardless of the fact that forking to these degree is no small undertaking. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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=/ _______________________________________________ enlightenment-devel mailing list enlightenment-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/enlightenment-devel
