Horde3D

I'm not sure that would work. From my experience as soon as you start asking money, there is the notion of expectation and management of that expectation. Crowds can become very hostile if things are over promised and under-delivered and there is a real issue with user support.

Having said that, if the product is more mature, I'm sure it could work. But horde is a hell of a ways off that I think

Basically, you'd need to have that commercialisation in mind at the inception of the product I think to really do it properly. My experience with Torque if nothing has taught me that making game engine tech is a hard thing to do and keeping a feature hungry userbase happy is an even harder thing

I would propose to add the following license text to the source files:



Any feedback is appreciated. Do you guys think the custom terms are appropriate?

That looks fine to me.

Excellent!

I don't think this is a particularly good modification.

Yes, it would allow static linking and require modifications to be release back to the project, but so would the GPL with Static Linking Exception (as used by the C++ standard libaries).

In addition, the GPL with SLE is widely used, and universally recognised, whereas anyone wishing to use this new license in a commercial work would be forced to hire a lawyer to verify this license before proceeding.

Also, this doesn't address the issue of closed-source extensions I raised in a previous thread. If the license is going to be changed, might as well make all necessary changes in one go.

_________________
Tristam MacDonald - [swiftcoding]

Can you point us to the LGPL with static linking? I couldnt find it via google.

I'm still incredibly wary of GPL licenses of any form. For commercial usage it just screams "minefield" to me.

It is GPL (not LGPL) with static linking exception. I was doing some research again and found two common exceptions. The first one is the Classpath Exception which is used for java libraries:

The other one is the GCC std library exception. You can find a discussion here.

The license exceptions seem to be better than the LGPL because they don't impose some rather impractical requirements like that your program must be linkable against a newer version of the library.

I was reading through the terms of the GPL version 3 today and found it quite fair and reasonable. In contrast to the LGPL, I did not see any pitfalls or minefileds.

@zoombapup:
You should really take some time to read through the license and bring up any specific concerns that you have. Because GPL + exception appears like an interesting option to me as well.

I just read GPL v3 again.

Problems:

5c) You must license the entire work, as a whole, under this License to anyone who comes into possession of a copy. This License will therefore apply, along with any applicable section 7 additional terms, to the whole of the work, and all its parts, regardless of how they are packaged. This License gives no permission to license the work in any other way, but it does not invalidate such permission if you have separately received it.

THE ENTIRE WORK. That is, not just Horde, but my app, my other libraries etc.

Face it, GPL just screws around too much with legalities to be useful. At the end of the day, the GPL is huge and has a lot of burden placed on users. I just want to use a library or not really. Given that things like OpenGL, DirectX, Collada DOM and the like can be licensed without all the GPL hassle, it seems crazy to me to try and compromise a license thats already pretty screwed up by adding exeptions (which btw it seems make it not a GPL license anyway).

Right, that's the strong copyleft idea of the GPL and that's why we (as some other prominent libs) would add the static linking exception which says that your code which is linked against the library is not considered as part of the work.
BTW, additional permissions are explicitely allowed by the GPL in section 7. In fact the LGPLv3 is just a serious of exceptions added to the GPLv3.

I don't really mind whether we use the custom license or a GPL with static linking exception, in the end they have the same effect. I just think we should opt for what gives more certainty for users. The custom license is small and easy to read but has never undergone any proper legal consideration, on the other hand the GPL+exception is more complex but established (gcc and java use it).


The custom license would also cover that. Adding new functionality by subclassing existing classes (deriving from them) does not modify the provided functionality. So all extensions could be closed-source.

The reason I favour the GPL with static exception is that the C++ standard library (and GCC) are covered by this license, so if you ever compile a C++ program, it is already subject to this license.

This means that there can be absolutely no question that the exception works, because every piece of commercial C++ software in the world already is using this exception.
I think the wording might need to be more explicit - I certainly didn't read it that way the first time through.

_________________
Tristam MacDonald - [swiftcoding]

That is good proof that it's safe from "viral copyleft syndrome" .
If you're going to use phrases like "face it", then please put forth an argument that actually backs up your assertion.
1) Have you ever read the EULA that you must agree to before installing DirectX? It "screws around with legalities" as much as any open source license.
2) OpenGL and DirectX aren't open source projects, so their licenses don't need to cover what you can/can't do with the source code (which you don't have, unlike Horde). I'm pretty sure the license agreements for DX and your implementation of GL do say that you can't make any modifications to them - so they're more restrictive than the license suggested in this thread anyway... Are you saying you'd prefer a closed-source release of Horde with a restrictive license?

Firstly, I dont use GCC and happily compile code that ISNT under any GPL license thank you very much. Second STL is an ansi standard and is not vendor specific. If I was dumb enough I could even use Microsoft's version of it (which is decidedly NOT GPL).

But getting back to the point..

Can anyone point me to the final version of the GPL that is being proposed so I can pick over it? I mean I've found various versions and none of them have mentioned explicitly any exceptions as being part of the license. I've seen some discussions on wikipedia but I wouldnt trust that site as far as I could throw it.

So can we have a version of the license to look at?

Sorry to be a bit of a PITA about this, but its important.

Ok, so EVERY peice of commercial software is licensed under the GPL? Where is the proof of this exactly?

I havent read the EULA for DX no. Neither have I for opengl. But thats mainly because I find it so inconceivable that somehow microsoft are going to be able to encumber my commercial software after the precedent set by 10,000 other peices of software using directX and the like that it becomes a negligable problem for me.

Your other point about DX/OGL not having source is a good one, although the level of testing and support for DX in particular means I'm far less likely to be worried about it (lets face it, Horde hasnt got a lot of testers in comparison). Although I have in the past found bugs in microsoft products (namely a pretty catastrophic bug in directplay which we reported to microsoft and it got fixed).

Apples and oranges there though. I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to get at. I'm asking that the license be clear and free from potential encumberances that are the residue of an over-zealous "software has to be free" mentality is all. Its up to the owners of the code whether they comply or not.

You've read the GPL, so just tack on either of the exceptions that swift posted on the end and there you go.

The problem clause: "You must license the entire work, as a whole, under this License..." is rendered safe by the exception "if you compile this file and link it with other files to produce an executable, this file does not by itself cause the resulting executable to be covered by the GPL".

Every bit of C++ compiled on GCC-based compilers links to GCC's standard library, which is GPL. However, they add the exception posted earlier, which says that linking with their library doesn't force you to also use GPL.
So in other words, all C++ exe's built on that family of compilers would be GPL'ed if not for the exception.

By the same token, shouldn't it be inconceivable that the GPL + std-lib-exception is going to be able to encumber your commercial software after the precedent set by 10,000 other peices of software using the GCC-standard-library?

Also, for some perspective - the DX license agreement does in fact place legal restrictions on it's redistribution.
If Horde was packaged up without source code, it would be easier to license it - I was seriously asking if you would prefer to only be allowed to link against a provided binary, instead of being allowed to compile your own. If so, a simpler license could be used.

The problem is that Horde wants back-contribution to be mandatory - a simple open source license doesn't work for that. Something like GPL or LGPL is required.
A simple closed-source license does work however, because it simply eliminates all cases of non-contribution!
Thus, if you want to use the library without complex licensing, and don't want to contribute to it, a simple closed-source license would be suitable for you.

The open-source packages could be licensed under some form of (L)GPL to enforce back-contribution, but binary-only releases could be licensed under something simple - possibly even a Creative Commons license.

Alternatively, we can just look for a suitable exception to (L)GPL and stop just irrationally hating it because it's written by someone with a philosophy we don't agree with.

As long as we can see the final wording and that wording is acceptable.

But the exceptions I've seen so far arent really that clear (out of context with the full license).

I dont think its being irrational to really take care with this kind of thing. As a commercial developer you HAVE to be exceedingly careful about it (I've seen first hand what happens when you arent).

And seriously, I *DO NOT* like the GPL take on all software having to be free. I dont think thats irrational as someone trying to make a living making software. But if the license ends up in the right form then thats fine.