Re: [Wxdevide-devs] code license consern

[Tony R. <tb...@gm...>]

On Thu, Oct 9, 2008 at 6:24 PM, Nuklear Zelph <nuk...@gm...>wrote:

> i have a concern about the licensing of wxDevIDE. i realized after thinking
> about it that using the wxWindows license on a full application, not just a
> library could allow for some hot head to pretty much make their living on
> our hard work. hack in the designer for a couple hours and they have a new
> gui that would take minimal code changes and now they have a new commercial
> product. (along with a graphic designer for new images.)
>

I'm glad we are revisting the idea of licenses. I think it's critical that
we get the concerns out in the open.

Yes, the wxWindows license would allow a "hot head" (read "creep" or
"leech") to take our source code and sell it as their own. In fact, they
wouldn't even have to change anything to do this. However, they could only
sell the binary (i.e. the executable). The license would prevent them from
close sourcing anything but the changes they made. So the basic idea is that
of, "Why pay for the cow when the milk is free?". That is, why would a user
pay for the creeps version when they can grab ours for free?

I have no problem with dual sourcing; we would need to include the source
information in the header of the file to clearly delineate what source code
is with what license. Or, better yet, we would need to keep them in separate
subdirectories.

As far as the true open-source license for the "hot head"-proof code, LGPL
won't work. The wxWindows code is just a more lenient version of LGPL. The
hot-head could still take LGPL and sell his own version. Instead, the only
way to do what you want is to make it true GPL and link the modules at
runtime only (i.e. through the API). So the wxWindows licensed part of the
source code would be a separate module running in a separate executable than
the GPL'd code. If the source code mixes other than at linking or execution
time, then GPL poisons the whole thing (making everything GPL). There's a
good video lecture on this that I sent out a few weeks ago. I can send it
again if anyone wants the explanation in a clearer manner than I have
presented.

-Tony