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* RE: SN backend GPL or LGPL?  (was: SourceNav release...)
@ 2002-02-13 10:38 Davies, Mike
  2002-02-13 10:50 ` Robert Hartley
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 8+ messages in thread
From: Davies, Mike @ 2002-02-13 10:38 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: sourcenav


Hi Robert,

IANAL,  but :

> If we did have the back end torn off of SN, would that make everything
> that used also GPL?

Yes, if it was an extension of GPLed code

> Can we take SN type GPL code, turn it into a library, and 
> then use it in
> an LGPL way?

Nope.

> What if we had some sort of Corba type middle ware that provided a
> decent distributed API, without actually linking the code in. 
>  Would any
> application that connected to it still be bound by the GPL?

Any changes you made to the Sourcenav Code would be GPLed and you would have
to provide them in the usual ways,  however it seems to me that any
application that used the CORBA interface would be effectively dynamically
linked to it and so might escape the GPL.

> I am trying to find out here if there is any room for commercial
> developers to contribute to SN.  It would be a shame to let 
> it all go to
> waste.

Well,  many commercial firms contribute to GPLed SW,  there is nothing
stopping you from doing that.  If you are trying to make a proprietry
version of SourceNav then this is prohibited by the licence.  That is quite
apart from the implications for the feelings of people who contributed their
efforts freely for the common good.


Mike Davies

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* RE: SN backend GPL or LGPL?  (was: SourceNav release...)
@ 2002-02-15  9:43 Doug Fraser
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 8+ messages in thread
From: Doug Fraser @ 2002-02-15  9:43 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: 'Robert Hartley', sourcenav

First, let me say that I agree that the Lesser GPL (LGPL)
is a far more flexible license for development of
library components. No doubt. But SN is an entity, a whole,
not a collection, so I would be surprised to see it go LGPL
in a general sense. That being said, I'll attempt to explain
my reasoning for supporting your earlier 'CORBA' example.

Using SN as a tool in cooperation with other tools
would not run against the spirit of OpenSource. If
that were true, then the compilation of proprietary
solutions using GCC would also run against the spirit.
As would using PERL to handle CGI into a proprietary database
on a web server. All these tools are used as solutions
in proprietary settings every day. Deriving a proprietary
work from an open source product would run counter,
because that derived work itself is what is being marketed.
In the same sense, you can derive works from GPL products
for your own personal use without turning those changes
back, as long as you do not make the derived work available
to anyone else. So in that sense, if you bundle SN with
a collection of other tools that communicate with an
autonomous SN to perform useful work, that would be an
accepted use. What would matter, though, is if you modified
SN to provide a closed backend to enable communications
to your tools. If, however, you provide that modification
to the public, then you have met your responsibility to
the community by providing a useful extension to the
existing tool.

Doug

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Robert Hartley [mailto:rhartley@ics.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2002 3:20 PM
> To: sourcenav@sources.redhat.com
> Subject: Re: SN backend GPL or LGPL? (was: SourceNav release...)

<snip>

> All other issues aside, using Corba or something as a 
> workaround would not be
> in the collaborative spirit of open source.
> 
> That is why I am wondering about an LGPL version of the SN backend.
> 
> Thanks to all for listening,
> 
> - Rob
> 
> 

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* RE: SN backend GPL or LGPL?  (was: SourceNav release...)
@ 2002-02-13 11:55 Doug Fraser
  2002-02-13 12:49 ` Robert Hartley
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 8+ messages in thread
From: Doug Fraser @ 2002-02-13 11:55 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Robert Hartley; +Cc: MDavies, sourcenav, 'Ian Roxborough'


If you link in a library, your new work embodies that library, and
thus is covered by the license of the underlying library. If that were
not so, then any OpenSource project could be turned into a library
in order to void the GPL. So the act of linking to a library binds your
work to the underlying license. Deriving a library from a GPL product
conveys GPL status to that library, since the library is a derivative work.

Which, in the spirit of the tool and the spirit of OpenSource, is
as it should be. However, I can't see that it would keep you from
developing an extended IDE if the rest of the IDE communicated to
SN through an API that did not require linking. CORBA as you say
or a database. You could develop that API, feed it back to the
community, then move forward with the proprietary tools, just using
a separate SN as a backend. Some would argue against that on
philosophical grounds, but it would appear to be quite legal.


Personally, I am quite happy with my SN5.0 release. One of these
days, work permitting (yeah, fat chance...) I want to learn how
to hook it into the backend of VIM, so I can use VIM as my editor,
and have it feed controls back to SN. VIM has a backend hook built
into it, so it should not be too hard.

Thank you to the all the fine folk who have provided
and contributed to SN.

Doug

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ian Roxborough [mailto:irox@redhat.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2002 1:40 PM
> To: Robert Hartley
> Cc: MDavies@uk.waukbearing.com; sourcenav@sources.redhat.com
> Subject: Re: SN backend GPL or LGPL? (was: SourceNav release...)
> 
> 
> On Wed, 13 Feb 2002 13:38:26 -0500 Robert Hartley 
> <rhartley@ics.com> wrote:
> >
> > What I was trying to ask is if we made the back end of SN a 
> shared library,
> > libSNdb.so, would every thing that linked to this library 
> have to be GPL'd or
> > would the library be able to be treated as a LGPL work?
> 
> This would require a change to the licensing, which probably
> won't happen.
> 
> Ian.
> 

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* SN backend GPL or LGPL?  (was: SourceNav release...)
@ 2002-02-13  9:06 Robert Hartley
  2002-02-13 12:19 ` Syd Polk
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 8+ messages in thread
From: Robert Hartley @ 2002-02-13  9:06 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: sourcenav

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1456 bytes --]

If we did have the back end torn off of SN, would that make everything
that used also GPL?

Can we take SN type GPL code, turn it into a library, and then use it in
an LGPL way?

What if we had some sort of Corba type middle ware that provided a
decent distributed API, without actually linking the code in.  Would any
application that connected to it still be bound by the GPL?

I am trying to find out here if there is any room for commercial
developers to contribute to SN.  It would be a shame to let it all go to
waste.

Thanks,

Robert


> From: Mo DeJong <supermo at bayarea dot net>
> To: "Eray Ozkural (exa)" <erayo at cs dot bilkent dot edu dot tr>
> Cc: sourcenav at sources dot redhat dot com
> Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 09:45:27 -0800
> Subject: Re: SourceNav release ...

> I think the right solution is to turn the SN backend into a
> library. Even if you don't reuse the code, the ideas that are
> there have years of effort behind them and they do work. It should
> make use of Berkeley DB to store symbols but through an API so
> that people can swap out other database layers if they want to. It
> should also provide a nice two phase parse and dump into symbol DB
> sequence that is easily inspected. Just figuring out what and
> where the problem with a parser is can be the most difficult part
> of fixing a problem. Also, it is absolutely critical that a well
> defined regression test framework is developed as part of the
> library.


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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2002-02-13 20:49 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 8+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed)
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2002-02-13 10:38 SN backend GPL or LGPL? (was: SourceNav release...) Davies, Mike
2002-02-13 10:50 ` Robert Hartley
2002-02-13 11:25   ` Ian Roxborough
  -- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2002-02-15  9:43 Doug Fraser
2002-02-13 11:55 Doug Fraser
2002-02-13 12:49 ` Robert Hartley
2002-02-13  9:06 Robert Hartley
2002-02-13 12:19 ` Syd Polk

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