Awesome work, Alberto. I was just looking around for something I could
drop in to edit web pages, glad to know that this is available.

Alberto Valverde wrote:
> P.S
> Due to TinyMCEs original license this package is released with the
> LGPL license. Be sure to understand it's implications before
> redistributing any app that uses this egg. I'm not a license expert
> so I'm not the one to ask for advice on this.

I am no license expert either, but here is my understanding of it: The
LGPL is intended to allow non-free code to link to a "free" library. As
such any non-free code that uses an LGPL library must include the
source to that library, along with any modifications made to it.
Incorporating the code directly into your project legally requires your
entire project to be licensed under the LGPL. The distinction lies in
keeping the code in a library. Everything that wraps TinyMCE up into an
egg should also be LGPL licensed, as far as I can tell. The integration
with turbogears is the "linking" part, so everything on the turbogears
side of that boundary should be safe to use as you see fit.

My suggestion (remember, I am no expert) is to keep any modifications
you make to the tinyMCE egg, or to tinyMCE itself, in the code for that
egg. Due to the flexible nature of both python and javascript it is
very easy and tempting to work around any problems you encounter with
your own code. (redefining a function not exposed in the tinyMCE
javascript API, for instance) DO NOT DO THIS. If you keep all of your
changes inside the package containing tinyMCE, and distribute that
properly, you should be safe as far as I can tell.

In short, keep all your changes to tinyMCE or the interface to tinyMCE
inside of the egg, and be sure to release the code for that. Calling
code from within turbogears using the api exposed by this package does
not bind your project under the LGPL. But don't take just my word on
it, as IANAL.

<rant py:if="YouCare is True or YouHaveLotsOfTime is True">
This, to me, is why I hate the GPL. I want to spend my time
programming, not worrying about licenses that, by wilfull malice, or
more likely the nature of the subjects they discuss, are almost
incomprehensible, even to someone that is capable of generating and
understanding verbose speech nearly at will. I understand that the
intent is to guarantee freedom to modify code, to me it holds
programmers hostage, and reduces them to the servant of some ineffable
'user'.

In my opinion the success of projects based on the BSD and MIT style
license have shown that the GPL is needlessly seeking to solve a
problem that is better solved by network effects. I can think of almost
no instances where a company contributed specific fixes to a GPL
project to address issues important to them when that company was not
also helping that project in some general fashion. This, to me, gives a
posteriori proof that the argument that BSD/MIT licenses allowing a
company to take from the community without contributing their code
modifications does not make them lesser entities than the GPL. The GPL
ensures that those modifications are simply not made, because the
software in question is not used to that purpose.

If you've gotten this far, I am impressed, I get really wordy when I am
angry. In summary: The GPL sucks for any programmer trying to make
money off free software, it does not allow us to use a free package to
create a commercial product without serious consideration of the
licenses implications. It sucks for end users because it discourages
the contribution of specific problem fixes made by corporations as it
requires ALL of the code involved to be opened up, indeed it
discourages the modification of code for commercial purposes by large
corporations at all. It has a highly skewed concept of freedom that, to
me, amounts to the freedom to give your code away and have no options
to get anything from it.

All that said, I am typing this on a system that is the result of
multiple GPL projects. I depend on GPL software, but I despise being
forced to worry about this issue for any projects I would like to make
money on.

I am sorry, Alberto, if this rant detracts from discussion of or
interest in your project. It shouldn't. I am really happy to see this,
and hope it will prove to be as useful as I think it will. Sometimes we
just have to get something off our chest though.
</rant>


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