Wine license change
Steve Langasek
vorlon at dodds.net
Wed Feb 6 22:07:12 CST 2002
On Wed, Feb 06, 2002 at 07:08:39PM -0800, Daniel Walker wrote:
> > When Alexandre last brought up this issue, he was very disappointed.
> > He felt that there was not enough support from the 'silent majority'
> > of Wine developers for a license change. His overriding lament to me
> > was 'No one cares'. He further felt that since a small number of
> > major Wine contributors objected, that it was not appropriate to
> > change the license.
> >
> > I would like to ask for a more formal process. I would like each and
> > every contributor to Wine to send Alexandre a private email with an
> > 'Agree' or 'Disagree' opinion, so that he can more truly assess what
> > the contributors to Wine really want. The specific question I wish to
> > pose is as follows:
> This is ridicules.. If you have something to say then post it to this
> group. Private emails to Alexandre aren't going to stimulate meaningful
> conversation.
I don't think anything in Jeremy's message suggested that conversation was
a requirement. He's looking for feedback to get an idea of how members of
the Wine community feel. But if you're open to being persuaded that the
LGPL would be a Good Thing for the Wine community, I can try to oblige
you.
> > Finally, in closing, I wanted to summarize our position. We plan to
> > release our future work under an xGPL style license, and we would like
> > the rest of the Wine community to join us. If the bulk of the
> > community wants to stick with the current license, then we will
> > probably end up making a separate CVS development tree. Anyone would
> > be free to use our work from that tree, under the xGPL-style license
> > terms the FSF's lawyers recommend.
> So lets get this straight, if no one wants to change to the LGPL you'll
> fork the code?
> I don't have anything necessarily against the LGPL, but your email
> sounds all wrong.
One thing to bear in mind is that others already ARE forking the Wine
code. Given the nature of their work, Codeweavers must maintain a
separate CVS tree locally; although we're fortunate in that their fork is
open to backporting to the official tree. Other companies are forking
with no intention to contribute back (see Lindows.com); still others
(Transgaming) have made reintegration of their work contingent on turning
an profit.[1] Jeremy is at least being courteous enough to let us know
where /his/ company is going with the Wine code, and is inviting the rest
of the Wine community to come along with him.
Cheers,
Steve Langasek
postmodern programmer
[1] I'm not judging here, just using them for illustrative purposes; I was
among those who signed off on the current Wine license, and I recognize
that the Wine license allows such uses.
More information about the wine-devel
mailing list