First of all, I hope that I don't sound too harsh or rude when I write. I tend to be that way when argumenting. The only thing I want to show here is good will.
On Thu, 08 Apr 2004 07:10:39 -0700 Andy Ross wrote: > But you seem to miss the point. It would also *remove* the GPL > requirements from anyone who develops HUD code. I'm not sure that's a > good tradeoff, especially when the code in question is something we > can never see or use. The GPL requirements are in no way removed, of course. > I don't think you have considered the licensing issues completely. > Taking this kind of design to an extreme: we could > write a dynamic loading API for every module in the simulator. A > proprietary, non-GPL simulator (clearly "derived from" FlightGear) > could then legally redistribute itself along with FlightGear solely by > linking to those APIs. No, this is not so. I checked on the FSF site (the GPL FAQ), and it is quite clear that anyone distributing FlightGear + modules (even when they can be loaded dynamically) must release the source code for both FlightGear and the modules (that is, make it available in the same way). > Now, that might be OK if we all agreed that is what we wanted. But > such a situation is certainly not the "normal" interpretation of the > GPL, which says that modified versions must be shared under the same > license. No, they don't have to be shared. However, if they are shared, they will be under the same license. > Honestly, if there were actual simulator features involved here (an > existing external library that we wanted to use), I would be more > amenable to this idea. But as it stands, the only beneficiaries to > this patch are doing proprietary development and cannot contribute to > the project. Now you are missing *my* point. Our HUD code cannot be released in any way. The aim was to replace the visualization system for our simulator, which was able to display an external world image, using our terrain database, and using video techniques to display the HUD on top of that, but was rather expensive to use for our simplified simulators. I suggested that we use FlightGear to accomplish the same task, and we can already drive it from the network. However, video hardware which would allow us to display the HUD on top of the FlightGear image would be quite expensive as well. So I tried to look for another solution. I did think about implementing all the possible basic shapes in FlightGear, and driving the HUD drawing code from the network, but it meant implementing our whole HUD again. As we can't distribute the HUD definition either, or even the symbol definitions, you would have been able to draw only basic shapes such as lines or squares or circles, which is almost a reimplementation of GL or GLU allowing for a network data source... And as I don't like to work on something that has already been done, I found an alternate solution, the one I presented to you first. We can't distribute the HUD anyway, and if we had not had FlightGear, we would have spent a *lot* of money on a new visualization system. I'd rather try and put that money to better use. Maybe try to make FlightGear profit by this later on. I'm pretty sure that a few organizations have similar problems. Mine can't do much more for the community in this very case. But when facing other problems, they might be more willing to give something in return if we can make this work. Actually, it will work anyway, because we can make this work on our own. Now that I have made the patch, it can be made available for everyone to use, but I don't think I will do that anyway. I'm just trying to show you why I find it odd to see you reject my patch. > And as written, the patch acts as an "escape clause" > that allows HUD module developers to ignore the requirements that the > GPL places on the rest of the code. Actually, if someone intended to distribute such a plugin with FlightGear, they would probably have to do so under the GPL. The requirements are for distribution, not development and use. a few references : http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLAndPlugins http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DevelopChangesUnderNDA -- Jorge Van Hemelryck _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
