Subject:
Re: Licensing summary
From:
"Vidar Hokstad" ####@####.####
Date:
5 Oct 1999 01:17:31 -0000
Message-Id: <19991005011338.28802.qmail@mail.relight.com>
This was a reasonable summary. Below I've commented on _my_ needs
only, related to your suggestions. What I need, and what I want are
two different things, though. I'd like a more liberal use of licenses
than what we need, for the reasons of more easily growing mindshare in
the embedded systems community.
(When I talk about we/us below, I talk about Screen Media)
On Mon, 4 Oct 1999 18:39:11 -0600 you wrote:
>Let me try to summarize what we need in a graphics system license:
>
>
>1. We _must_ have:
>
>a. The ability to have private, proprietary drivers to be used (NDA's,
>and other commercial non-control issues)
>
>b. The ability to work with, communicate with, and be linked with,
>private, proprietary applications. (commercial software shops use our engine
>with
>their application; they'll never go open source, but still want/choose our
>engine)
These are really one and the same: Being able to link proprietary
code into the server side. I still believe some people will have problem
with LGPL here, but for _me_ it doesn't matter. Even the GPL would be
acceptable for _our_ use. But then we will only be using it with network
support.
>2. We _would_like_to_have:
>
>a. All modifications to original files, whether they're enhancements
>or bug fixes. It'd be nice to have them back, but not required.
The MPL allow this, but also allows people to "cheat" in some cases,
by adding enhancements in separate files. For me, I'd consider the MPL
as protection enough, but I won't object to the LGPL for the server side.
>b. A community desiring to better the project as a whole,
>by sending contributions to be included in the whole, whether they're original
>work, new drivers, or whatever.
>
>3. We _must_not_have:
>
>a. The ability to use the graphics engine, lock stock and barrel,
>for whatever purposes are desired???? [It is this 3a that I can't quite come
>to
>grips with]
I gather that you mean that we don't want someone to take the code, and
run with it, not contributing anything back. But I'm not sure if this
would be a huge problem. Unless you add a lot of stuff that you are very
afraid of releasing, it will always be an advantage to using an unchanged
"official" version over having to backport your changes every time you
upgrade. The MPL provide some (but not as much as the LGPL or GPL) protection
against this kind of use, though.
My main concern is the client side, though. The client side is a very
small part of the code, but a liberal license on the client side code
will be a "bail out" for people that _can't_ (for contractual or other
reasons) use LGPL'd code, and thus don't want to link to a LGPL'd server,
but won't let them take the server code and run with it.
Regards,
Vidar
