On Wednesday, December 15, 2010 3:11:27 PM UTC-5, Branko Vukelic wrote: > > On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 8:07 PM, pbreit wrote:
> > It's clear that GPL scares off potential users. > That bug is already marked invalid. You'd have to give us a stack trace if > you want to reopen it, and preferably attach a working patch. Please also > note the version of web2py that you are using. I like GPL plus a (clarified) exception, but I wouldn't exactly say pbreit's concerns are invalid. There clearly is some history of confusion and concern among web2py users/developers and their clients: https://groups.google.com/group/web2py/msg/ba5277320933a72a https://groups.google.com/group/web2py/msg/de8b75aa2efe2fa5 http://groups.google.com/group/django-users/msg/87b5cfc637c55433 http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/ddg79/can_web2py_applications_be_provided_to_end_users http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/ej0p1/new_standalone_web2py_database_abstraction_layer/c18grty http://jacobian.org/writing/gpl-questions/ (not web2py-specific) And of course, there's no telling how many potential users saw "GPL" and just moved on, without asking a question on the list, reddit, etc. Although the precise empirical impact of the GPL on adoption has not been established, nor has the real risk of a commercial fork (mitigation of which appears to be a primary motivation for using GPL). Another consideration is the ability to use individual components of web2py within commercial apps. For example, the new standalone DAL is GPL'ed. If someone uses the DAL in an application that does not otherwise use the rest of the web2py framework, would they have to GPL the application (the current web2py license exception doesn't appear to cover that case)? Of course, once we go more permissive (e.g., LGPL, BSD, MIT), it will be hard to go back, so we should be cautious with any change. Trying to improve the clarity of the current exceptions and the way we communicate them (e.g., explicitly and prominently stating it is dual licensed) is probably a good first step. Maybe that will be enough to resolve the concerns without resorting to a more permissive license. Anthony
