Re: [Opensync-devel] libsynthesis and vformats

[Michael B. <mb...@de...>]

Hi,

On Sun, Jan 09, 2011 at 03:42:54PM +0100, Lukas Zeller wrote:
> On Jan 8, 2011, at 15:33 , Michael Banck wrote:
> > There's a couple of things you could do (or maybe you did already, I did
> > not check your contributor agreement) to make libsynthesis more
> > appealing to external developers:
> > 
> > 1. You could relicense it to BSD.  That would allow you to use your
> > modified version of the code (plus any external future contributions) in
> > proprietary products.  Of course, it would allow the same to possible
> > competitors, not sure you have any.  In that case, you could drop the
> > contributor agreement.
> 
> True, but quite a big risk to take. I've invested 10 years into this
> and didn't get a single penny funding except for selling products
> based on this code, in a narrow niche.
 
I am not saying you would get funding, I am just saying you could still
sell your products that way, and have the code open to everybody.  Of
course, nobody can guarantee you that you would get more external
contributors if you did so, but libsynthesis would certainly be more
interesting to contribute to.

> > 2. Relicense the code to say "LGPL 2.1 or later".  That would remove
> > potential concerns that in the future libsynthesis will be incompatible
> > with LGPLv4 libraries, if a new version of the LGPL gets released ever.
> 
> Worth considering, sure, but it does not solve the problem that we
> still need a contributor agreement.

Right, but maybe some people would be more willing to sign it.
 
> > 2. If not already the case, you could modify the contributor agreement
> > to guarantee the free software community that the public version of the
> > code will always be in the spirit of the LGPL as published by the Free
> > Software Foundation.
> 
> Our CA is a almost 1:1 copy of the SCA (Sun, for OpenOffice), and
> states that "Any contribution we make available under any license will
> also be made available under a suitable FSF (Free Software Foundation)
> or OSI (Open Source Initiative) approved license".

Well, the SCA certainly doesn't have the best image.  However, that is
mostly due to the potential to take code (partly) proprietary.  You
already did that, so that is probably clear to prospective contributors.

I see how it would be difficult to get outside contributions that way.


Michael