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apockill / uArmCreatorStudio

uArm Creator Studio is a Visual Programming Language for robot arms, with a heavy emphasis on computer vision and usability for both low experience and high experience programmers. It's written entirely in Python, and supports python scripting within the application.
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2 cents on licensing (feel free to ignore) #15

Open wisechengyi opened 7 years ago

wisechengyi commented 7 years ago

I'm not a license expert, so only mean to provide some generic ideas in the long run.

I noticed that this software and the libraries it uses including PyQt are under GPL license. IIUC GPL is more restrictive compared to MIT or Apache, so sometimes it discourages businesses from using them if the intention is to use it nut to keep the code private. Given a lot of times businesses drive OSS projects, the situation may not be most ideal.

If GPL wasn't intentionally chosen, and you think it's a good idea for this software to be more open, here may be some options:

  1. Isolate the GUI code from core library, so the core library can be under another kind of license which does not touch GPL software.
  2. Trying other more open Python GUI libraries (I'm not sure how good other libraries are compared to PyQt) and steer the entire repo from GPL.
apockill commented 7 years ago

Hi there! Since uFactory has a history of keeping everything it does completely open source, and uArm Creator Studio is mainly meant to work with the uArm, I feel like the entire project should be outright open source.

Although, this is my first big project and I certainly could use some advice. Do you think there would be a significant increase of community interest if I isolated the Logic core with an MIT license or another more lenient license?

apockill commented 7 years ago

I was thinking... Since the GUI code is already isolated (AKA, all code under the "Logic" folder is guaranteed to not need PyQt) I might as well just switch the license on those files. What license would you recommend?

wisechengyi commented 7 years ago

I think Apache should be a good start, and if there's need in the future, you should be able to switch to MIT. https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-different-between-Apache-v2-0-and-MIT-license

Disclaimer: Suggestions only. I am not offering legal advice.

wisechengyi commented 7 years ago

more reference: http://choosealicense.com/