Re: [Opensync-devel] libsynthesis and vformats

[Lukas Z. <lu...@pl...>]

Hello Chris,

On Jan 10, 2011, at 0:04 , Chris Frey wrote:

> On Sun, Jan 09, 2011 at 05:58:42PM +0100, Lukas Zeller wrote:
>> But maybe the point is something different - as much as I agree with
>> the goals of free software, I'm not so sure about the total insurance
>> attitute that sometimes accompanies it. I mean, if the current licensing
>> terms are a problem for someone who would like to actually *do* something,
>> please let me know. But expecting from me to risk 10 (full time!) years
>> first, so that maybe eventually somebody could feel more inclined to
>> considering contributing with zero risk... Not really.
> 
> My original email in this thread was meant to let you know. :-)

Yes, I apprechiate that! I am just trying to explain a bit why we came to the current licensing / contributor model. What I have a hard time with is getting thrown into the same pot with multinational companies, as a two man, entirely self funded, all risk private micro venture. I beg to realize that this makes a difference, and not all options IBM can safely take are automatically feasible for us.

> To me, a contributor agreement, of any kind, says to the community that
> the LGPL is good enough for them, but not good enough for the author.

LGPL alone simply did not fit our situation. They have their shlib border way to define derived work, and according to that, all our commercial products would have to become opensource. As much as I would like to be able to dedicate all of my work entirely to opensource, I haven't arrived at an arrangement that would allow me to do so, without committing commercial suicide. I'm not saying such an arrangement is impossible, but I'm saying I haven't found it yet. Ideas welcome.

We've considered all sorts of ways, and arrived at LGPL+CA exactly for the reason because the community does not like derived licenses, but wants FSF original licenses (or so we were told at that time in 2009).

> Basically, it is a big sign saying that the author wants to work alone.

It could be read as such when looked at it without any context. I hope however I could give the context to explain that this interpretation is more that wrong regarding libsynthesis - the reason is the real-world history of the project. A full-time venture of two people over 10 years now, with (I repeat) no cent public money burnt in the process. Sacrificing the business that pays for it to correct the impurity of the current licensing is just out of proportions, and would hurt everyone, us and the community alike.

I'd understand the criticism more if we chose GPL, so forcing everyone else to open their complete applications while we could keep them closed. But with LGPL we're offering the same potential for building commercial apps to everyone. The only reason that's not "good enough" for us is that our (pre-existing!) products are statically linked with some or all code of what today's libsynthesis is. It's just not possible to rewrite all of them (the day has 24 hours here as well). Users adpting libsynthesis in its OS form can't possibly have these sorts of dependencies, so what the CA provides us extra is a non-value for everyone except us.

> For example, I never dreamed of contributing to MySQL, even though I
> used the free version regularly.  About the most I might have done was
> report a bug.  I only did that once in an area that affected me, but I
> didn't bother working up a patch.  The contributor agreement / closed
> nature of MySQL was a real factor in deciding not to pursue writing a
> patch.

Aagain I beg to take scale into account. If we were anywhere near the size of MySQL AB at that time, or had shareholders only waiting to draw away profit from your contributions, I'd understand the concern.

I know, I'm stressing the point a bit, but essentially this is what makes tiny companies that take their own risk reluctant to try with open source. You get compared with the most powerful commercial entities, and expected to exceed their abilities to take risks (they all have CAs or tailored licenses, but you may not).

> There's only so much time in the day, and sometimes seemingly small
> issues like licenses and paperwork or lack of trust sway the balance
> in certain directions.  And sometimes money sways it in the other.

> Of course, there are business reasons why the dual license / contributor
> agreement path is taken, and if actual money is being made, hey, that
> works.  And in some cases the suits force these decisions on the programmers
> too.  But the money is instead of contributions.

Nobody can contribute anything without his or her living supported by money. So anybody has to take care about that, somehow. I find it a bit strange that making that money "elsewhere" (hidden from the community) should be more noble, and thus more worth contributions. Both approaches are IMHO equal compromises needed in today's economy. To correct that means digging into how wages, taxes, money in general do or should work, a discussion I'm most interested in but is definitely OT here.

Lukas Zeller