25 Nov
2013
25 Nov
'13
6:55 p.m.
2013/11/14 Carlos sanchiavedraz <csanchezgs(a)gmail.com>om>:
2013/11/14 Robin Gareus <robin(a)gareus.org>rg>:
I've made a quick search in Sourceforge to see the number of projects
with each licence and related to Audio:
* GPL2/GPL2+: they are a vast majority, maybe just because It's older
than v3. Here you can see some of the projects that we love at Musix
and myself: Ardour (in its own repo), Qsynth, Qjackctl, (all the rncbc
stuff), Rakarrack Hydrogen, LMMS
* GPL3: Here we have Guitarix (also has GPL2 and BSD), Virtual MIDI
Piano Keyboard
* AGPL: not much
You can check also the chapter "Adoption"[1] Wikipedia as part of the
article on GPL. There you can read:
"
In 2011, four years after the release of the GPLv3, according to Black
Duck Software data, 6.5% of all open-source license projects are GPLv3
while 42.5% are GPLv2.[45] Google open-source programs office manager
Chris DiBona reported that the number of open-source projects licensed
software that had moved to GPLv3 from GPLv2 was 50% in 2009,
"
I thought at the beginning that choosing GPLv3 was the way to go
nowadays: It's newer, and takes into account problems like
"Tivoization", patents and stuff.
And also AGPL is one for me to consider because many of my projects
could benefit from its protection against being "cloud-servified"
against your will, let's say.
But then I see that big projects (reference for me in the FLOSS world)
like Ardour, Jackd, Qjackctl, Qsynth, Rakarrack are GPL2+ and others
just GPL2, so I wonder if they just keep going on with what was chosen
in first place (backwards compatibility I guess) or they just don't
like GPLv3 yet even with those mentioned potential benefits.
I'd be very appreciate to know in particular the experience of these
projects I mentioned and that of people who actually make a living
developing floss software and have a business model that supports
and/or benefits from it.
Thanks so much anyways you all.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPLv2#Adoption
--
Carlos sanchiavedraz
* Musix GNU+Linux
http://www.musix.es
On 11/14/2013 01:20 PM, Carlos sanchiavedraz
wrote:
Well and clearly explained.
Thanks so much, Robin.
--
Carlos sanchiavedraz
* Musix GNU+Linux
http://www.musix.es Hello dear all LAUers.
Time ago I did some research about open source/free software licences:
types, pros and cons, etc. I'm reviewing it and, given that I follow
and love many of the great projects and applications coded by members
of this list, I would love to here you're opinions (pros, cons) and
experience in practice and why you chose X licence for your project(s)
(business model or enterprise view in mind, 'cause you like it...).
Software concerning infrastructure and inter-operation should *provide
freedom to the developer*. Less restrictive licensing (eg. MIT, BSD,
public-domain) is important to promote standards (in particular network
or communication protocols.)
Application software aimed at end-users should *protect the freedom of
the user*. Here GPL is appropriate. It ensures that any user will be
free to run it (which must include the freedom to modify it e.g. to make
it work on future systems,...) amongst other freedoms. From a developer
point of view the GPL also provides continuity and allows software to
evolve.
Personally I either choose the MIT or the GPLv2+ license for all of my
projects. The former for libs, the latter for apps (with the usual
exceptions, mainly due to re-using code and inheriting licenses). The
reason for those two is that they're the only two licenses that I have
read, understand and agree with.
I have no intention to spend any time reading all of the others licenses
cover-to-cover, and I believe that any developer who is using a given
license should at least have a basic understanding of [the implications
of] the license which mandates reading it completely.
I keep an open eye on [new] licenses but have not had any reason to
investigate any of them any further.
I see that the most commons are GPL2 (some
don't like yet the v3) and
GPL3. And nowadays with so many services in the cloud also AGPL, and
MIT or Apache as well with HTML and Javascript libs and artifacts.
Thanks as always for sharing your work and knowledge.
2c,
robin 
25 Nov
25 Nov
8:17 p.m.
New subject: [semi-OT] Licences and your opinion and experience
On 11/25/2013 06:54 PM, Carlos sanchiavedraz wrote:
I've made a quick search in Sourceforge to see the
number of projects
with each licence and related to Audio:
[..]
interesting breakdown. You're looking at this from the top, right? Most
restrictive license per project?
I wonder if it would makes sense detail this further. e.g lines-of-code
per license.
I suppose the picture is also somewhat incomplete because you did not
include libraries which are used by many of the projects. e.g. LV2 SDK
is MIT, libjack LGPLv2, vamp-plugin SDK 4-clause BSD,.. (no guarantee,
that's just from the top of my head).
If you multiply the use-count of these libraries by the number of
projects that use them, I expect they will dominate GPL projects.
The resulting app will still be GPL (or any other more restrictive
license) and also the ratio 'lines-of-code per license' as well as
'projects per license' will remain unchanged.
[..]
* GPL2/GPL2+: they are a vast majority, [..] Ardour
[..]
While the vast majority of Ardour's own source is GPL-2+, Ardour3 is
effectively GPL-3+ because it includes some code under LGPL-3+.
http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-multimedia/ardour3.git;a=blob;f=deb…
has a complete breakdown.
[..]
I thought at the beginning that choosing GPLv3 was the
way to go
nowadays: It's newer, and takes into account problems like
"Tivoization", patents and stuff.
I suppose it makes no difference for the vast amount of linux-audio apps.
I still see GPL-2 vs GPL-3 as a matter of choice! v3 is not better just
because it has a higher number or is newer.
e.g. maybe some people do want their synth to be included in some
commercial product. The GPLv3 does make this much harder for most
vendors (ie. they'd need to publish their build-stack). A reasoning pro
GPLv2 would be for example: "I don't care how they build it, I don't
want to tinker or hack it and rather just want to play the instrument.
But if they change the synth itself, the must to publish the changes."
2c,
robin
26 Nov
26 Nov
2:01 p.m.
New subject: [semi-OT] Licences and your opinion and experience
Hello again, Mr. Robin
2013/11/25 Robin Gareus <robin(a)gareus.org>rg>:
On 11/25/2013 06:54 PM, Carlos sanchiavedraz wrote:
That's right, Robin, I mentioned "quick search". So therefore, please
forgive not being complete.
I've made a quick search in Sourceforge to
see the number of projects
with each licence and related to Audio:
[..]
interesting breakdown. You're looking at this from the top, right? Most
restrictive license per project?
I wonder if it would makes sense detail this further. e.g lines-of-code
per license.
I suppose the picture is also somewhat incomplete because you did not
include libraries which are used by many of the projects. e.g. LV2 SDK
is MIT, libjack LGPLv2, vamp-plugin SDK 4-clause BSD,.. (no guarantee,
that's just from the top of my head).
If you multiply the use-count of these libraries by the number of
projects that use them, I expect they will dominate GPL projects.
The resulting app will still be GPL (or any other more restrictive
license) and also the ratio 'lines-of-code per license' as well as
'projects per license' will remain unchanged.
Interesting.
[..]
I didn't dive to such detail, good to know. And nice resource about
this matter that you link.
* GPL2/GPL2+: they are a vast majority, [..]
Ardour [..]
While the vast majority of Ardour's own source is GPL-2+, Ardour3 is
effectively GPL-3+ because it includes some code under LGPL-3+.
http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-multimedia/ardour3.git;a=blob;f=deb…
has a complete breakdown.
[..]
That is what I somehow supposed, maybe people are not so strict about
somebody/some-enterprise including their sw and having benefit from
it. In someway, I concur with that, even when I know some of them
(enterprises) just "vampirize" and have no return (support, money,
code) to the community at least.
Thanks again, Robin.
--
Carlos sanchiavedraz
* Musix GNU+Linux
http://www.musix.es
I thought at the beginning that choosing GPLv3
was the way to go
nowadays: It's newer, and takes into account problems like
"Tivoization", patents and stuff.
I suppose it makes no difference for the vast amount of linux-audio apps.
I still see GPL-2 vs GPL-3 as a matter of choice! v3 is not better just
because it has a higher number or is newer.
e.g. maybe some people do want their synth to be included in some
commercial product. The GPLv3 does make this much harder for most
vendors (ie. they'd need to publish their build-stack). A reasoning pro
GPLv2 would be for example: "I don't care how they build it, I don't
want to tinker or hack it and rather just want to play the instrument.
But if they change the synth itself, the must to publish the changes."
2c,
robin 
12:47 a.m.
New subject: [semi-OT] Licences and your opinion and experience
On Mon, 25 Nov 2013, Carlos sanchiavedraz wrote:
* GPL2/GPL2+: they are a vast majority, maybe just
because It's older
than v3. Here you can see some of the projects that we love at Musix
and myself: Ardour (in its own repo), Qsynth, Qjackctl, (all the rncbc
stuff), Rakarrack Hydrogen, LMMS
* GPL3: Here we have Guitarix (also has GPL2 and BSD), Virtual MIDI
Piano Keyboard
Using gpl2+ allows the code to be included in a gpl3 project and the new
project becomes gpl3. gpl3 code can not be included in a gpl2 project. So
from a reusable code POV gpl2+ makes things easier. But really lgpl is
made for that use anyway, but it does mean separating your code into app
and lib with 2 licences. So perhaps gpl2+ is the lazy way? Or maybe a lot
of developers feel as you have, a bit confused and are hedging their bet.
Gpl2 has been in use a long time, lots of the code I use is gpl2,
gpl2+ makes it work with gpl3 too. It takes a lot of work to understand
all the ramifications of the two versions. Most of us don't totally get it
even reading them through. I think the people most likely to use v3 have
seen some short coming in v2 they want to avoid in their project.
As an aside... what about using code snips from tutorials? For example
putting an icon in the systray? Is that just use of the lib or is it using
someone elses code? Do I need to use the same lic as the tutorial? If I
had to use more than one reference what does that do? (code in python
using gtk libs in this case)
I'm not really too worried in this case as the code so far is for my use,
but many FOSS apps start that way.
--
Len Ovens
www.ovenwerks.net
2:06 p.m.
New subject: [semi-OT] Licences and your opinion and experience
Hi Len,
2013/11/26 Len Ovens <len(a)ovenwerks.net>et>:
On Mon, 25 Nov 2013, Carlos sanchiavedraz wrote:
Interesting, because some of my projects are just that: systray
helpers written in Python.
* GPL2/GPL2+: they are a vast majority, maybe
just because It's older
than v3. Here you can see some of the projects that we love at Musix
and myself: Ardour (in its own repo), Qsynth, Qjackctl, (all the rncbc
stuff), Rakarrack Hydrogen, LMMS
* GPL3: Here we have Guitarix (also has GPL2 and BSD), Virtual MIDI
Piano Keyboard
Using gpl2+ allows the code to be included in a gpl3 project and the new
project becomes gpl3. gpl3 code can not be included in a gpl2 project. So
from a reusable code POV gpl2+ makes things easier. But really lgpl is made
for that use anyway, but it does mean separating your code into app and lib
with 2 licences. So perhaps gpl2+ is the lazy way? Or maybe a lot of
developers feel as you have, a bit confused and are hedging their bet. Gpl2
has been in use a long time, lots of the code I use is gpl2, gpl2+ makes it
work with gpl3 too. It takes a lot of work to understand all the
ramifications of the two versions. Most of us don't totally get it even
reading them through. I think the people most likely to use v3 have seen
some short coming in v2 they want to avoid in their project.
As an aside... what about using code snips from tutorials? For example
putting an icon in the systray? Is that just use of the lib or is it using
someone elses code? Do I need to use the same lic as the tutorial? If I had
to use more than one reference what does that do? (code in python using gtk
libs in this case)
I'm not really too worried in this case as the
code so far is for my use,
but many FOSS apps start that way.
I'm not that worried (at least yet ;) ) but I would want to do things
quite well from the beginning instead of having to go back someday in
the future.
--
Len Ovens
www.ovenwerks.net
Thanks, Len.
--
Carlos sanchiavedraz
* Musix GNU+Linux
http://www.musix.es
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4 comments
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participants (3)
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Len Ovens -
Robin Gareus