Re: [Pykaraoke-discuss] Extended Debate
On Saturday 1 August 2009 06:13:47 Kelvin Lawson wrote: > Interesting question. From the start I always intended for PyKaraoke to be > usable in commercial projects. To that end I deliberately avoided GPL to > remove any restrictions / concerns that commercial projects may have about > whether they are free to use it. Rather than go with a BSD-style license, > however, I settled on LGPL so that anyone could use it within their > products but any changes to the core code should be submitted back. > Essentially I'm happy for people to use it in any kind of product, but I'd > like to encourage people to submit back improvements for everyone else's > benefit. > I can certainly understand and appreciate this. > However I can see that there may be an argument for not applying the same > license to the GUI itself. While I think the above is a sensible approach > for the CDG, KAR etc playback modules it might not necessarily make sense > for the GUI. So I am not against applying the GPL to the GUI, but I wanted > to let you know my original thoughts from a few years back when I started > the project and to gauge general opinion as well. If anyone has any opinion > on this then please let us know. Appreciate getting the history of the decisions. We have no objections to the CDG, KAR etc remaining LGPL. It's the GUI code that we would be in favour of applying the full GPL to. John S. -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Pykaraoke-discuss mailing list Pykaraoke-discuss@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/pykaraoke-discuss
Re: [Pykaraoke-discuss] Extended Debate
Hi John, 2009/7/31 John Schneiderman > There's some debate here where I work about moving forward with the > PyKaraoke > project. At this time nothing has been decided or set in stone. We want to > open up communications to see if our goals fit the community. We are > looking > for a karaoke player that we can use in a professional capacity. To that > end, > we have contributed several enhancements and bug fixes to this project. The > two major concerns we have are the usage of the LGPL for the GUI code, and > the lack of modularity in the overall architecture. The issue with the GUI > code being LGPL is the possibility of the company's work being used against > it to be built into a larger system. Though this was a concern even in the > beginning, it is increasingly becoming a sore spot as each new enhancement > is > given. The other issue is the architecture of the system. It appears to be > more and more fragile with each new enhancement. The possible corrections > for > this are to re-write/re-design the architecture itself. Once again, let me > say nothing has been decided. We actively wish to discuss these concerns > and > see if any possible solutions can be made to address them. > Interesting question. From the start I always intended for PyKaraoke to be usable in commercial projects. To that end I deliberately avoided GPL to remove any restrictions / concerns that commercial projects may have about whether they are free to use it. Rather than go with a BSD-style license, however, I settled on LGPL so that anyone could use it within their products but any changes to the core code should be submitted back. Essentially I'm happy for people to use it in any kind of product, but I'd like to encourage people to submit back improvements for everyone else's benefit. My concern about the GPL is that this discourages people from using PyKaraoke as the underlying playback library in their products when I am not interested in forcing people to release all of the rest of their source code just because they combine it with PyKaraoke. Using LGPL restricts the burden of sending code back to only the PyKaraoke code itself. However I can see that there may be an argument for not applying the same license to the GUI itself. While I think the above is a sensible approach for the CDG, KAR etc playback modules it might not necessarily make sense for the GUI. So I am not against applying the GPL to the GUI, but I wanted to let you know my original thoughts from a few years back when I started the project and to gauge general opinion as well. If anyone has any opinion on this then please let us know. Regards, Kelvin. -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july___ Pykaraoke-discuss mailing list Pykaraoke-discuss@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/pykaraoke-discuss
Re: [Pykaraoke-discuss] Extended Debate
On Friday 31 July 2009 16:20:02 Tim wrote: > I am not familiar with who all holds the copyrights to code in the > project, but if your worry is that someone will take this product and > compete with your company with the same code, then why don't you just > use a full GPL rather than the LGPL? It may seem counterintuitive at > first, but if a competitor did use it under the GPL, they're going to > have a harder time doing that and not releasing all of the rest of > their code along with it. There are plenty of companies out there > that make this model work. That is the debate here actually. There is strong support for a full GPL, but a lot of concern over the use of the LGPL for the GUI. Sorry, I should have made that clear. John S. -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Pykaraoke-discuss mailing list Pykaraoke-discuss@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/pykaraoke-discuss
Re: [Pykaraoke-discuss] Extended Debate
> There's some debate here where I work about moving forward with the PyKaraoke > project. At this time nothing has been decided or set in stone. We want to > open up communications to see if our goals fit the community. We are looking > for a karaoke player that we can use in a professional capacity. To that end, > we have contributed several enhancements and bug fixes to this project. The > two major concerns we have are the usage of the LGPL for the GUI code, and > the lack of modularity in the overall architecture. The issue with the GUI > code being LGPL is the possibility of the company's work being used against > it to be built into a larger system. Though this was a concern even in the > beginning, it is increasingly becoming a sore spot as each new enhancement is > given. The other issue is the architecture of the system. It appears to be > more and more fragile with each new enhancement. The possible corrections for > this are to re-write/re-design the architecture itself. Once again, let me > say nothing has been decided. We actively wish to discuss these concerns and > see if any possible solutions can be made to address them. I am not familiar with who all holds the copyrights to code in the project, but if your worry is that someone will take this product and compete with your company with the same code, then why don't you just use a full GPL rather than the LGPL? It may seem counterintuitive at first, but if a competitor did use it under the GPL, they're going to have a harder time doing that and not releasing all of the rest of their code along with it. There are plenty of companies out there that make this model work. As for the code's fragility, I can't really comment. A documented modular design is always a good thing though. tim -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Pykaraoke-discuss mailing list Pykaraoke-discuss@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/pykaraoke-discuss
