Re: [Opengc-devel] status/Avsim conference update/RFC

[Manuel B. <li...@va...>]

Hi Damion,


On Mon, Sep 29, 2003 at 07:30:58PM -0400, Damion Shelton wrote:
> Ok. Do you think it would be possible to reach an agreement to 
> relicense the "base code" portion of OpenGC under the LGPL or BSD?

LGPL should be the easiest. BSD is too different (you know, there are
the GNU people and there are the BSD people)

With BSD, anyone can take the code and use it. Without telling you,
without contributing back changes... 
Like M$ uses the BSD TCP/IP stack in Win*. 

It might be worth looking at licenses of Mozilla and OpenOffice (MPL and
?) since they use the development model that I was using as an
illustration.

Why not propose to all the other contributors of OpenGC these ideas and
the choices of licenses and see what they say.

> There are a few technical issues (handling multiple GUI interfaces for 
> example) that would have to be addressed, but they're probably not 
> insurmountable.

Yeah, esp. when you have binary modules. Thats why I would prefer the
"source -module" way. 

> > For me the most important about OpenGC is the fact its free software 
> > and
> > the code is open source.
> 
> Well, that's what I had hoped for as well. Any ideas about how to drum 
> up more interest in contributing to the code base?

Hmmm... how about some simple "Hello World" -type tutorials and some
docs for both installation (source and binary) AND programming.
Try to appeal to the windows/MSFS "gauge programmer" type of people.

The docs should include how to get the sources and dependencies and
build tools, how to compile, how to add something "custom" like a 
"Hello World" gauge and how to set the thing up to talk to the sim.

Get those MSFS junkies to actually do something more than just work
within the confines of MSFS (and its hacks)

Also put up a short explanation of the (future) license so they know
what they and others can do and what they can't.

Most of the "freeware" for MSFS is very "unfree" in GPL/BSD sense.

> This is what I spent over an hour talking to Enrico about at the Avsim 
> conference. He doesn't agree that PM will always dominate the market, 
> and has in fact expressed frustration that he's a bit overwhelmed by 
> requests for new features. He would like "competition", if only to 
> relieve some of the development pressure.

Interesting. 

> This is what I spent a bunch of time talking to Austin about. He has 
> similar relationships with several companies that use X-Plane in their 
> businesses; they pay him to add features with the understanding that 
> whatever is created gets rolled back into the main release of X-Plane.
 
> I think this is a _very_ good model under which to operate. I have 

Yes. I try to work that way if possible. I think its is the BEST way to
develop software.

> worked in close cooperation with a company called Kitware at work, and 
> one of their main products (VTK) is released under a similar model. If 
> you're curious, the copyright under which they release their code can 
> be found at:
> 
> http://www.kitware.com/Copyright.htm
> 
> The difference I see here is that without the ability to "hold back" 

Holding back certain parts wouldn't be too much of a problem as long as
it is "special" stuff that wouldn't make much use to other people.
If "open source" is the "preferred" method (and maybe a little cheaper
than if not open sourced), that seems to be a good approach in my eyes.

> some features, in the case where _I_ am the company doing the homebuilt 
> aircraft development, there is really no way to fund the development of 
> gauges that require a cash investment. In other words, I'd be perfectly 
> happy if the following were true:
> 
> 1) OpenGC still exists as open source
> 2) Anyone can contribute code to the open source version
> 3) I'm allowed to develop closed source add-ons that make OpenGC viable 
> in the homebuilt aircraft market.
> 
> This requires something along the lines of a BSD/LGPL license. As long 
> as everyone can agree to switch to that, I'm perfectly happy. My ONLY 
> interest is being able to pursue an interesting new avenue of 
> development that I don't think is possible operating purely under the 
> GPL. I have absolutely zero interest in stopping development of OpenGC 

True. The GPL wasn't made for that. Some projects are using an amended
version of the LGPL, eg. the WxWindows toolkit (www.wxwindows.org)
This amendment has to do with linking... 
You might wanna take a look at it.


Regards,
Manuel