On Thursday, 24 July 2008, at 19:25:42 (+0200), Vincent Torri wrote: > I've learned a lot about the licences reading these mails, and it seems > that the fact is not "such licence is a hindrance" but "such licence can > give us developpers". That's different. So, from what i've understood, wrt > companies : > > 1) either with stay with BSD, and only the companies that accept to work > with code licenced under BSD would eventually share code with us > > 2) either we switch to, for example LGPL, or other similar licence (I was > told that MPL is not that bad), and then companies that accept to share > code with LGPL AND BSD licenced code would eventually help us. The > difference can be great. > > So if we want to have more than 5 devs on the core efl, we should > seriously discuss about which licence to use.
I dispute the belief that license is the key (or even one of the key) factors in the success of an open source software project. There are other reasons besides license as to why the previous example project comparisons came out the way they did (like continuous, ongoing financial backing), and I can provide examples of GPL/LGPL projects that have failed against their BSD-licensed counterparts (Berlin) and of successful BSD-licensed projects (Vorbis). The only way to scientifically assert that LGPL > BSD for project success is to have two identical codebases, one under each license, and see which one wins. That would, of course, be somewhat silly...but that's the only way to control your experimental variables. I can also point to reasons why E hasn't been used (or has been replaced) in certain commercial ventures, and I'm know at least a couple people on this list who could do the same. So far I don't know a single company or organization which has cited license as their reason for moving away from E. And without really looking too hard, I was able to easily find articles about actual, decent-sized public companies (not the least of which being Apple) who chose BSD-licensed software because it's MORE business-friendly: http://www.bsdatwork.com/2002/01/03/source_of_mac_os_x/ http://www.oreillynet.com/onlamp/blog/2001/04/is_bsd_taking_the_spotlight_aw.html The bottom line is that you'll find developers who refuse to code *GPL software just like you'll find those who refuse to code BSD/MIT/X software. And like it or not, their reasoning almost always has something to do with how they define "freedom" and whose freedoms they're trying to protect. Michael -- Michael Jennings (a.k.a. KainX) http://www.kainx.org/ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Linux Server/Cluster Admin, LBL.gov Author, Eterm (www.eterm.org) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "If you think C++ is not overly complicated, just what is a 'protected abstract virtual base pure virtual private destructor,' and when was the last time you needed one?" -- Tom Cargill, "C++ Journal" ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's challenge Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK & win great prizes Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100&url=/ _______________________________________________ enlightenment-devel mailing list enlightenment-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/enlightenment-devel
