[MonoDevelop] Licensing concerns.

[Christoph Wille]

We never said that our point of view is of "fundamental ethical" 
proportions - it is strictly focused on legality.

Chris

At 11:37 AM 7/15/2004, Chris Turchin wrote:
>The thing I cannot get over with regards to this whole licensing debate is the
>irony that #d would not even exist were it not for the major exceptions to the
>GPL which they have cut out for themselves:
>
>  13.   In addition, as a special exception, AlphaSierraPapa gives 
> permission to
>link the code of this program with the Microsoft .NET library (or with
>modified versions of Microsoft .NET library that use the same license as the
>Microsoft .NET library), and distribute linked combinations including the
>two. As a second exception, AlphaSierraPapa gives permission to link the code
>of this program with the  DockPanel Suite (or with modified versions of
>DockPanel Suite that use the same license as the  DockPanel Suite), and
>distribute linked combinations including the two. You must obey the GNU
>General Public License in all respects for all of the code used other than
>the Microsoft .NET library and the DockPanel Suite.
>If you modify this file, you may extend this exception to your version of the
>file, but you are not obliged to do so. If you do not wish to do so, delete
>this exception statement from your version.
>
>---
>
>So its okay for #d to link against non-OSS and even proprietary closed-source
>code bases when it is to their advantage, but making a compromise to 
>support an
>accepted OSI licensing scheme for #d or monodevelop AddIns is asking too 
>much...
>
>seems more like a case of 'do as we say, not as we do' than any real
>fundemental ethical standpoint with regards to OSS/free software...
>
>Regards,
>--chris
>
>[disclaimer: i know, #d is not the only project using this kind of exception
>(which I guess means I DO read licenses now and again :P), but it 
>certainly does
>not change the gravity or the nature the exception being made...]
>
>On Thu, 15 Jul 2004, Bernhard Spuida wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > > On Thu, 2004-07-15 at 07:17 +0200, Christoph Wille wrote:
> > > > We've decided to take this to the FSF, to get an independent and 
> especially
> > > > a professional clarification on this matter. I'm sure that everyone 
> here
> > > > agrees on the authority of the FSF in OS licensing issues.
> > >
> > > Out of curiosity, what exactly are you taking to the FSF, because it
> > > seems like in the last 2 days, a lot of different issues/concerns
> > > regarding licensing have been touched upon.
> > >
> > Your decision regarding to only accepting future contributions
> > licensed under X11. This in our understanding has a number of issues
> > affecting monodevelop in its entirety:
> >
> > 1) As the existing files are under GPL, and you now only accept X11,
> > those files can no longer in any way be modified. This would be a
> > very serious issue for the further development of MD unless of course
> > you accept GPL'd contributions.
> >
> > 2) Add-ins that make use of the GPL'd interfaces, namespaces, methods
> > etc. have to be licensed under the GPL as well. See
> > <http://www.fsf.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#TOCGPLAndPlugins> as quoted
> > in a previous email by me. In effect, your decision would prevent the
> > development of add-ins making use of any part of the
> > #develop/monodevelop add-in architecture.
> >
> > 3) Add-ins that do not in any way use or depend on the
> > #develop/monodevelop infrastructure and which can be used in other
> > programs are fine. I just cannot see how those would work (call me
> > unimaginative if you like).
> >
> > As I am quite certain that this is not exactly your interpretation of
> > the issue at hand, we decided to ask the professionals.
> > Regards,
> >
> >                  Bernhard Spuida
> >                  #develop senior word wrangler
> >
> > 365/24 - so expect support for only 15.208333 days a year