> Also, the question is not really if any projects have been copying from > TightVNC in the past, but rather if they want to continue copying from > (future) TigerVNC releases, without updating their license, and if that's > something that we care about.
I care about it. For instance, I have a set of VNC benchmark tools that use verbatim copies of the Tight encoder/decoder source and benchmark them at the low level. If TigerVNC upgraded its license to GPL v3, then I'd be forced to upgrade my license as well. GPL v3 is an impediment in that case. That's a minor argument, but the point is that we don't know who or what might want to borrow our code. > But as Pierre said, we really don't want other projects to copy or code. Who is "we"? You do not speak for me on this matter. I personally think we should encourage people to copy our code. That's the point of open source, right? Maybe one of those other projects can find bugs in our codecs or add features that we can't. So far, I have only heard arguments against GPL v2. What I really want to hear is a compelling case *in favor of* GPL v3. And "because it's newer" isn't good enough. > My suggestion is that we "downgrade" the license if/when we have > identified a case when this is actually needed and makes sense. It is not possible to downgrade the GPL license once it is upgraded. > I doubt that the community will ever "standardize" around a single > license, but from my point of view, GPLv3 is quite a standard license > nowadays. I wholly disagree. The more projects use a license, the more that license has been tested and the better it is understood. Relatively few projects use GPL v3 at the moment. > GPL violations in general are pretty common. If a TigerVNC violation would > be tried in court, do we really want our code to be licensed using a 18 > year old license, a license from the Windows 3.0 era? Much wisdom wrt > licensing has been gathered since. This is just FUD. Most lawyers will tell you that there is a higher chance that a new license will be tested in court because it has less legal precedent. If GPL v2 is so outdated as you claim, then why do some of the most prominent OSS projects in the world, including the Linux kernel, still insist upon it and reject the new license? The real truth is that *neither* license has been truly tested in court, not in the context that normal applications use the license. As was pointed out, the GPL v3 adds additional provisions for embedded systems use that don't apply to our software. What I really want to see is a reasoned legal argument which enumerates both the risks of upgrading and the risks of not upgrading. I want to know what other prominent OSS projects have made the upgrade and why they did so (and not "because the FSF said it was a good idea.") Barring that, my opinion remains with the status quo. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Apps built with the Adobe(R) Flex(R) framework and Flex Builder(TM) are powering Web 2.0 with engaging, cross-platform capabilities. Quickly and easily build your RIAs with Flex Builder, the Eclipse(TM)based development software that enables intelligent coding and step-through debugging. Download the free 60 day trial. http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-adobe-com _______________________________________________ Tigervnc-devel mailing list Tigervnc-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/tigervnc-devel
