Gustavo Sverzut Barbieri schrieb:
On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 7:53 PM, Michael Feiri [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
On monday, starting with revision 36622, all vital EFL components have
been configured to depend on copylefted code (eina is licensed under
LGPLv2.1). This is unfortunate, as it renders the existing BSD-style
license agreement essentially worthless. It is especially unfortunate as
the EFL seems to be unique as the only successful GUI environment under
a BSD-style license.
it's not worthless, it still let you copy, modify and no need to
redistribute all other pieces. You can even do that and remove the
eina dependency and replace it with your own data libraries. You're
also free to keep using the pre-eina version.
I didnt plan to just cannibalize code but rather hoped to eventually
port the entire core EFL stack to eCos. I know I could just fork, but I
was hoping to avoid that.
I have used Evas as a component in a proof-of-concept for an embedded
project using the eCos operating system. No patches or other information
have been published yet, because the project is not yet released. But I
do expect to have patches for EFL ready upon release in order to avoid
the advertisement clause.
note that while you don't release this to outer world you have no
issues. I mean, if you use it inside your company for demo purposes,
you can distribute code to yourselves and no problem. It's just a
problem when you send it to third parties.
Now, eCos is owned by the FSF and is licensed under the GPLv2 with a
linking exception that makes it completely non-viral. This exception is
more powerful than the LGPL, because the LGPL does require dynamic
linking or the distribution of linkable object files and additional
modification and reverse engineering rights. These obligations would
infect a project that would otherwise just use a non-viral GPLv2 with
linker exception.
So I want to ask you to please consider keeping the core EFL components
and non-optional dependencies under the existing BSD-style license or
consider a non-viral copyleft like the GPLv2 with a linking exception in
oder to keep the EFL usable with eCos and similar free embedded
operating systems (FreeRTOS and RTEMS both use GPLv2 with linking
exceptions too). Dynamic linking is not an option for deeply embedded
operating systems. Often we dont even have a filesystem.
I really doubt this will happen. I don't have much code in Eina so I'd
agree with those that have and I guess they'll not like it, as you can
read in the long thread. Basically because what matters is that we
want to keep a healthy community, we want your code in exchange of
ours. Why can you use my code and I can NOT use yours? That's the
question, the problem and the license went in to solve that. If you
give us your code, we give ours.
In my case the mix of 4-clause and 3-clause BSD in the existing license
was sufficient incentive for me to plan to contribute code back.
I do know about the different motivations and interpretations of freedom
in the GNU and BSD camps. Thats fine. No need to discuss that.
I got the impression that in licensing - end it Raster expressed the
hope for BSD and LGPL to just live together in peace. Unfortunately in
the specific case of static linking this seems to require the mentioned
linking exception.
Additionally I might mention that the BSD-style license of the EFL could
mean that the EFL might technically be the only serious option for a
free 3rd party GUI library on things like the iPhone. Dynamic linking
does seem to exist on this platform but things like forced codesigning,
bans on externally loadable code, and restrictions on reverse
engineering and modification rights make the use of copylefted code
questionable at best.
I strongly disagree here. The problem is not about the library,
dynamic linking or even licensing, it's about the platform. And I
really doubt someone using EFL directly on iPhone, it have its own set
of libraries, which is very complete and optimized by the way. We
don't have that much apps to be ported, so not much point here.
Valid points. I still see an opportunity for a cross platform GUI
library written in plain C though. Anyway. I wish I didnt mention this
particular example as it seems to generate mostly irrational hostility
and distraction. Right now I really just care about static linking.
MfG, Michael
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