Matt,
what are your specific objections to a BSD style licence ? Is it the greater permissiveness or just that its not GPL ?
My largest concern is not that a company can use BSD-code, but rather add core enhancements (ie: modifications/enhancements/bug fixes to the core code) and keep those proprietary. I personally don't mind people keeping peripheral enhancements to themselves (for example, someone wishing to build a proprietary link between their app and NAnt, an NAnt gui, etc.), but it's good to get things like bug fixes and the like back from people using the code.
I know that nothing in the BSD license precludes people doing this of their own accord, but it's certainly nice to have an up-front agreement that this is the case. I'm not personally attached to the GPL itself - the LGPL is probably more aligned with my personal feelings.
I will, however, accept whatever the development group decides the new NAnt license should be.
I'm not sure that I agree with changing the license to a BSD or Apache-style license. The code I've contributed was for a GPL project - changing it now would be the same to me as a "bait-and-switch" scheme pulled by a company.We most certainly are not trying to pull a "Bait and switch" scheme. By no means should we change the license without concensus from the contributers.
Sorry about the wording - I didn't mean to post any accusations....
Well if you consider that most users looking at using NAnt come from microsoft shops and have likely been exposed to/scared by the microsoft anti-GPL FUD. Compared to gcc users who are mostly all on Unix/linux or MaxOSX and are rather less fazed by that kind of thing. We have had a number of comments from consultants ( some from MS consulting ) and book authors that they would like to recomend NAnt to clients/corporations but had concerns about the license. Whether those concerns are valid is another issue however anecdotal evidence seems to suggest that this is a real concern for some people. I'd like to hear more from list members about corporate policy's regarding opensource usage and licenses.
One other possibility I'd like to throw out these is keeping the core codebase under the GPL (or changing to the LGPL) and offering a "business friendly" binary distribution under a different license. This license could exclude any GPL viral terms that might be frightening off those with license concerns. If business users are concerned with using GPL'd executables this could possibly satisfy them. Those people looking to get the source could still grab the (L)GPL'd code from Sourceforge.
This suggestion may not require a license change, but would likely require buy-in from the development group for the binary-licensed distribution.
I would, however, support adding a clause to the license exempting things like user-supplied or 3rd party tasks(though, even under the GPL these are required to be distributed if you're just keeping NAnt in-house) and development environments/plugins for such.I will take a look at it. Gerry also added a linking exception clause to the nant license see ( http://nant.sourceforge.net/license.html ). Not sure if its similar.
Take a look at the SharpZipLib license (GPL + linking exception) for one that's both business- and FSF-friendly.
It's a good exception - the SharpZipLib one is even more flexible:
--- 8< --- As a special exception, the copyright holders of this library give you permission to link this library with independent modules to produce an executable, regardless of the license terms of these independent modules, and to copy and distribute the resulting executable under terms of your choice, provided that you also meet, for each linked independent module, the terms and conditions of the license of that module. An independent module is a module which is not derived from or based on this library. If you modify this library, you may extend this exception to your version of the library, but you are not obligated to do so. If you do not wish to do so, delete this exception statement from your version.
Note : I've changed the exeption a bit according to the newest GNU Classpath exception. Old versions did have another exception, but the new one is clearer and it doesn't break compatibility with the old one.
--- 8< ---
Thanks, Matt.
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