On Jul 20, 2005, at 2:20 PM, Mark Wielaard wrote:
Hi,
On Fri, 2005-07-15 at 02:40 -0400, Geir Magnusson Jr. wrote:
On Jul 14, 2005, at 11:18 AM, Mark Wielaard wrote:
On Thu, 2005-07-14 at 10:17 -0400, Geir Magnusson Jr. wrote:
I really understand where you are coming from, and really thought
about how to present this, because there is no intent to stir up
the
license wars again :) I had just been receiving questions from
many
people and organizations, and felt that we should just make it
clear.
I would love to discuss and exchange ideas with people
about core library issues. How to best setup interfaces between the
native platform, runtime and core libraries. And I saw some
suggestions that I was about to comment on. But clearly if we are
going the ASLv2 or the high-way route I won't participate in that
(or at least not through this list).
Ok - before we jump to this conclusion, can I ask why? Can we come
up with some use-cases that illustrate the downside for you? Is it
just "I won't grant a copyright license for code under AL2"?
That and I cannot currently accept contributions under AL2 since
almost
all of the existing projects I work with cannot.
I understand that, but that only applies to code contributions made
explicitly on the mail list.
How about any other use cases?
Lets do that. Lets make a policy that means contributions can be
shared with projects like GNU Classpath, GCC, Kaffe, CACAO, JamVM,
etc.
It seems that is what a lot of people have been wanting for a long
time.
To build a bridge between GNU and Apache. And that is why we started
this Harmony effort in the first place.
Any contribution *can* be shared with any other project. If those
other projects don't like AL2, the contributor can be approached for
a license under GPL, for example.
But why would we want to make it hard for people to cooperate. We know
people will want to use the results of harmony in the existing GPL
projects. So why insist on a GPL-incompatible default policy and not
just make MIT/X (or some other commonly accepted and compatible
license)
the default for contributions?
No one wants to make it hard for people to cooperate, but we needed
to clearly state the default policy.
That said, I'm certainly willing to work to accommodate. I can't
guarantee success, but I will work for it.
Now, given that we're rather attached to the Apache License
here at the ASF, I'm not sure we wish to tangle with getting dual
licenses for contributions *here*.
However, that said, I would certainly encourage that the code also be
donated by the copyright holder under a mutually acceptable license
for use w/ GPL, although it would be done elsewhere.
All of the above is hypothetical - me thinking out loud, at the end
of a long day, and I may have another opinion or a different idea in
the morning. However, I do want to discuss options...
Lets illustrate with use cases?
The use case is simple. Graeme and Tim posted some interesting
ideas on
class library interfaces. Having worked on GNU Classpath I obviously
have some experiences with that. And they do have nice ideas, and I do
think we can prevent some pitfalls that we fell into with GNU
Classpath.
So far, I can't grok why you can't discuss those pitfalls.
Now I would love to exchange some larger code samples with them as
Graeme suggested. And I would even like to do that as part of Harmony.
But with the current "default" policy I have to negotiate about. I
wish
my time and energy was infinite. But since it isn't I like working and
discussing code that I can actually use in my existing projects.
What do you have to negotiate? We want to define an interface for
the VM and Class library that is 100% usable by anyone and everyone.
I always imagined that we'd define the interface, and then each do an
independent implementation.
Really using ASLv2 as default for this project is like putting up a
huge
sign: "Proprietary software hoarders welcome! Long haired freaky GNU
people stay out!". Which isn't fun since my best friends are long
haired
freaky GNU people :)
You are one of my favorite long-haired freaky GNU people, and I'll
note that no one will ever suggest that Dalibor has long hair...
Seriously... yes, proprietary "software hoarders" are welcome -
remember, we're about freedom :) Your problem with the ALv2 isn't
that it allows hoarding, anyway...
geir
--
Geir Magnusson Jr +1-203-665-6437
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
