bert / libdxf

Library with DXF related functions (work in progress)
http://www.xs4all.nl/~ljh4timm
GNU General Public License v2.0
64 stars 15 forks source link

Alternative license? #34

Open danhambleton opened 7 years ago

danhambleton commented 7 years ago

Hi there,

Thanks for this great effort - I haven't been able to test fully, but it looks very useful. Unfortunately, due to the GPL license, I won't be able to use this code directly in my project. Would you consider providing MIT as an alternative license?

lambert commented 7 years ago

danhambleton wrote:

Hi there,

Thanks for this great effort - I haven't been able to test fully, but it looks very useful. Unfortunately, due to the GPL license, I won't be able to use this code directly in my project. Would you consider providing MIT as an alternative license?

— You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/bert/libdxf/issues/34, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AABEZabrfwzbOp1mMqVNYypC3zbkVhRgks5rsqDDgaJpZM4MzWdu.

Hi,

libdxf needs a lot more effort to be really useful for anyone, YMMV.

What showstopper is present in the GPLv2+ license for your project that is not in the MIT license ?

Besides, since libdxf is to be a library project LGPL would be a better license.

Kind regards,

Bert Timmerman.

danhambleton commented 7 years ago

Well, if it can read and write polylines, meshes, and points - then that's all I need. From a quick look, libdxf seems to be able to do that, yes?

As for the license, I'm developing a CAD platform with an open source core, but a closed source editor ( more info here and here). It's kind of link a game engine, but for CAD. And like a game engine, it can build standalone apps (from a parametric definition of the geometry). So, it is very important that users be able to distribute their apps as closed source products - hence the need for MIT or compatible.

LGPL is an option, but not an ideal one for me, since I tend to prefer static linking over dynamic linking (which I believe to be the way to distribute closed source products with such a license - I could well be wrong).

Either way, this project will be a great learning reference.

bert commented 7 years ago

danhambleton wrote:

Well, if it can read and write polylines, meshes, and points - then that's all I need. From a quick look, libdxf seems to be able to do that, yes?

As for the license, I'm developing a CAD platform with an open source core, but a closed source editor ( more info here http://iogram.ca/and here https://github.com/MeshGeometry/IogramSource). It's kind of link a game engine, but for CAD. And like a game engine, it can build standalone apps (from a parametric definition of the geometry). So, it is very important that users be able to distribute their apps as closed source products - hence the need for MIT or compatible.

LGPL is an option, but not an ideal one for me, since I tend to prefer static linking over dynamic linking (which I believe to be the way to distribute closed source products with such a license - I could well be wrong).

Either way, this project will be a great learning reference.

— You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/bert/libdxf/issues/34#issuecomment-291622316, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAAdt911HvE_ukN5h1GqXcj43UvVDIshks5rsqgegaJpZM4MzWdu.

Hi,

OK, so you will not need an entire drawing toplevel struct with all of its branch structs and leaf nodes/members.

Hmm, I will not comment on closed sources.

libdxf is to be a library envisioned to be the basis for a CAD platform, based on pure C and DXF release 10 and upwards.

I added some C++ wrapper magic to prevent function name mangling, so linking/compiling to/with C++ should be possible too.

I could do a re-license to LGPL, that is about as far as I go for now, and this will be a disruption of my current flow, so will take some time to get processed.

For my current flow see: https://github.com/bert/libdxf/projects/1

I might look into releasing under more than one license (MIT might be a candidate), and have to dive into the legal matters on that one move first as not to burn fingers, again this will take some time.

If you build the doxygen documentation you can browse with a html browser through the structs, code and files ... and doxygen creates nifty graphs if you have the "dot" and "graph" tools installed.

Those graphs can be seen as a derived product ... maybe have to look into a license for those as well.

Anyway, thank you for your kind words, and yes I learned some things this evening ;-)

Kind regards,

Bert Timmerman.

bert commented 7 years ago

Hi,

I started a branch named "LGPL" ... which I will rebase from time to time ... YMMV ;-)

Kind regards,

Bert Timmerman.