(One of these days I will learn not to wade into GPL bruhaha's)
At 04:47 PM 8/30/2005, Eric wrote:
[Sami Aintila] Using GPL is an ideological choice. Nothing wrong with that. But there are lots of people who really don't understand the ideology they are subscribing to. Until it's too late. It's like a cult: once you're in, you can never get out. OK, I'm not a big fan of GPL, but that's not the point. The point is (as Jim was trying to explain in his first post) that GPL may be the single most important reason why some people cannot contribute to this project. I think this is a serious problem. But this problem could be circumvented by following the guidelines Jim suggested.
And there are lots of people out there that don't know what they are not getting they go with a non GPL license. For amateur radio things, I prefer GPL to non GPL solutions as the GPL preserves my rights to access the code, to experiment with it and extend it. The ability to experiment and extend I find essential for things to be used in the amateur radio realm.
How does the GPL prevent people from contributing to this project? If it is a matter of agreements with employers, than it is the employer that is partly to blame for someone not being able to contribute to a GPL project. What other open source license would you suggest for a project such as this? I'd be uncomfortable and perhaps unwilling to contribute to this project if it were under a BSD style license where one gives all the code away and there is no obligation for folks that take the code to make their modifications available if they distribute their code.
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[Sami Aintila] But I know this is not the first time we're having this discussion. The concept of "plugins" has been mentioned (and rejected) many times before. But the concept seems to work just fine in many other applications. Why not here? [Eric W] I am still not completely clear on all of the legal implications of using plugins with a GPL project. There are clearly many sides to this argument with strong opinions as noted in previous messages. I don't have enough solid sources to make a statement one way or the other on this subject, except to say that the GPL license is VERY open. It would seem to me that a conflicting license would have to be closed more so than the GPL for this to ever be a problem. Jim's example does bring cause for more thought, however.
Plugins under the GPL are somewhat complicated. It depends on how one defines the word "Program": as used in the GPL. The reading I've gotten in professional dealings with the GPL is a program is that which sits within the address space of a process. Under that reading, a plugin would have to go through a process boundary to be isolated from the GPL's terms. For example, a plugin architecture that simply made calls to an external DLL would not be alleviate the external DLL from being licensed under the GPL or LGPL as it is part of the program. However, it's not clear to me if that restriction could practically be enforced. If PowerSDR had some sort of a plug in interface, and a 3rd party distributed a DLL that used that plugin interface, it's not clear to me that the 3rd party has violated the GPL as they have not distributed any GPL code. I suppose the PowerSDR copyright holders could sue the 3rd party provider for the source to the plugin or to stop distribution of such a source less plugin, but I do not know enough about the law to know if they'd have a reasonable chance for success.
I am thrilled that Flex-Radio has chosen to license the code under the GPL. I think it is an excellent choice of license to further the development of SDR technology for Amateur Radio and insures that the technology will remain open to people that want to experiment and contribute to it.
Regards, Bill
