On Sep 13, 2011, at 3:58 AM, David Henningsson wrote:
There are two dimensions here. First, there is the issue of whether
we can take action against App Store, and that depends on how we
interpret the LGPL, and second, whether we actually proceed with
taking that action, which depends on our spirit, soul, moral, and
all that.
For the first dimension, it is not obvious to me whether we can or
not, but it seems likely, especially if we, as you say, "bend a
little or force the letter". So the precondition for taking the app
down seems to me to be fulfilled.
You're right in that many of us dislike Apple's attempts to lock the
platform (myself included), and that it is important not to let that
cloud our judgements when we need to decide what's best for the
project. But regardless of what we think of Apple, and if bringing
that app down means harm or good to the project, it just takes one
of all copyright holders to raise a complaint to bring the app down.
That includes all copyright holders in the past which we know
nothing about.
This actually comes down to another question. Does the project need
to protect itself from that scenario? If so, we need to relicense
FluidSynth, e g under BSD or under GPL with Classpath exception.
That is done by asking the contributors we can get hold of to
relicense, and rewriting the code for people that refuse or that we
can't get in contact with.
So which is worse? Relicensing and rewriting parts of FluidSynth, or
denying FluidSynth for iPhone/iPad users?
If you ask me, I will personally not commit to doing the job of
contacting copyright holders and ripping out code that does not
fulfil the new decided license. I will, however, prefer to relicense
my own contributions if the option is to have my own code ripped out.
David
Are we moving on to a new topic here ? Specifically, there are people
on this list who want to submit FS to the Apple App Store ?
"Ripping out code" ? ? That is a drastic compromise in my opinion.
If so, I think it would be only fair to contact the previous project
leads Peter Hanappe (the original inventor) and Josh Green (whom many
on the list already "know" for his significant contributions) for
their opinions. I can do so when needed.
Ebrahim
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