On Apr 12, 1:59 pm, Cactus <rieman...@googlemail.com> wrote: > In my view GMP and MPIR are a total mess in software engineering terms > and I would hence like nothing beeter than to participate in the > development of a new, well structured multiple precision library under > aa open source license that provided for commercial use. > > The number of comapnies who could benefit from this is very large and > the individual cost would be small but we have no obvious way of > orchestrating this. > > > It seems to me we have the worst of all worlds. We aren't funded, due > > to our code being regarded with suspicion by companies who fear we are > > trying to destroy them. And at the same time companies are free to > > build their closed source products on top of our Open Source library. > > Some (not all) of those companies, could definitely afford to fund a > > project like MPIR, but wont. > > I agree. We could build a first class BSD licensed multiple precision > library given modest sponsorsship. But while some major companies (not > all) feel they can exploit open source developers whilst making no > contributions to the development community in return, its hard to see > this happening.
I confess that I have never contributed code to MPIR, so please weight my response correspondingly. I have a profound dislike of the GPL because of its restrictions. I can just about live with LGPL 2 but am very, very wary of LGPL 3. In this regard I seem to be in good company. Whenever I distribute something it is always under a BSD-like license or something even more permissive, such as renouncing all copyright interest. However, just because I give something away I don't see why my recipients should be forced to follow my philosophy. After all, they can not prevent me also giving away my stuff to their competitors if I feel like it. Here's just one example of how I fell foul of the GPL. A colleague wanted to run my code under Cygwin. I very happily supplied source code but was unable to provide a pre-compiled binary and had to forbid him to do the same. The reason: both of us had only the freeware version of Cygwin and its license terms dictate that binaries linked with Cygwin libraries *must* be released under the GPL. I find it bizarre, and very sad, that the FSF prevents me from giving away binaries even though I'm more than willing to give away full sources. When I want to give something away I mean it to be as a gift, not as a loan. That's why I'm sold on BSD-like licenses. It's just possible I may contribute code to a LGPL 2+ library. In particular, I'm rather interested in parallel computation, including GPGPU. It is very very unlikely that I will contribute to a LGPL 3 library. It is much more likely that I'll contribute under a BSD- like license. I've no idea whether I'm unique or unusual in my views. It may well be that a significant number of other developers are also deterred from contributing to MPIR by the LPGP license. Paul -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "mpir-devel" group. To post to this group, send email to mpir-de...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to mpir-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/mpir-devel?hl=en.
