License Change?

[dantheman]

Originally Posted by fernandoferreira

I don't understand why people are considering Ext JS moving from LGPL to GPL a "restriction" instead of an increase on freedom. The source code continues as free (as in speech) as it was before. The only thing the developers are asking is that, if you want to give to your users less rights than the Ext Dev team gives to you, you must to acquire a license. Quid pro quo. That's it, it is explicit in the license now.

Amen.

The viral nature of the GPL is the point.

You may not have your cake and eat it too.

--dan

[esoteric]

Originally Posted by Lobos

Well for those worried, why not just fork it? And start your own community? That is what normally happens if you don't agree with the direction of an open source project is it not?

I for one am not too worried as I have always felt that Jack is not about restricting everything, he just wants to have the control over his baby and you can't blame him for that...

Good luck!

Ouch! No. I would never ever suggest a fork even though I disagree with the new licensing. The problem is technically based on the terms of the license you couldn't legally fork it because the only time ExtJS gives you permission to use it is a) you have purchased a license, or b) you follow their GPL'd license. So forking could get you into trouble.

I don't think Jack is about restricting either and I still support him and his team completely. And personally I do not blame him for wanting control, because I am the same way over my projects, but there are other licenses that would fit the "friendly Open Source" approach that ExtJS wants to take without forcing current Open Source projects converting to the GPL or walking away from ExtJS (if they can't buy a license that is).

[pabs]

Originally Posted by dantheman

Amen.

The viral nature of the GPL is the point.

You may not have your cake and eat it too.

--dan

What about authors who which to provide their software under a license that is more permissive than the GPL, such as the MIT or BSD licenses?

What about Open Source software which is already licensed under a more permissive license and wishes to incorporate Ext?

The reason people are unhappy about the licensing change is not because they want to "have their cake and eat it too"; rather, they're concerned about the change from a less restrictive non-viral license (the LGPL), to a more restrictive viral license (the GPL).

[vmorale4]

Originally Posted by Lobos

Well for those worried, why not just fork it? And start your own community? That is what normally happens if you don't agree with the direction of an open source project is it not?

I don't think that's possible/legal because technically Ext 2.0.2 was not licensed under LGPL :

Originally Posted by jack.slocum

carpediem,

Ext is not licensed under the LGPL license. For that reason, you don't get any LGPL rights unless we grant them to you. In our license, we grant the ability to use Ext under the terms of the LGPL if you meet the terms of our license. As stated in my previous post, this is the only way to effectively override section 7 of the GPL.

Either way, in order to avoid confusion (and the recent discussions popping up) we intend to clarify this in our next release.

And the terms of the license specifically state:

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES MAY YOU USE THE SOFTWARE (INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION THE SOURCE CODE
THEREOF) AS THE BASIS FOR OR IN CONNECTION WITH A PRODUCT THAT CONTAINS THE SAME, OR SUBSTANTIALLY
THE SAME, FUNCTIONALITY AS THE SOFTWARE

If somebody wanted to fork Ext, they would need to fork from 0.33 (BSD licensed). Good luck with that!

[jack.slocum]

Originally Posted by Lobos

Well for those worried, why not just fork it? And start your own community? That is what normally happens if you don't agree with the direction of an open source project is it not?

As vmorale stated about, forking from anything after early versions of Ext would violate the previous Ext license. This was one of the reasons we released under the Ext license - an intermediate license - not the LGPL directly.

That same license was the reason Ext version below 2.1 posed a lot of questions for open source advocates about viability for use within any open source project under any license. It would be difficult to incorporate in any open source project because the restrictions added were not compatible with 99% of open source licenses out there. That was one of the motivating factors of the license change.

[benb]

Given the license change, how can Ext even include adapters for jQuery, Prototype etc. given that they are NOT GPL. For example, Prototype is MIT, so how can Ext decide to include adapters, along with the source code for projects like Prototype without automatically implying they must now conform to GPL?

Either Ext is not following their own policy OR they are now destroying the licenses of other non-GPL open source libs.

That is a prime example as to why the change from LGPL to GPL is beyond terrible. I question whether Jack/ Ext has thought about this and what the jQuery and Prototype people would say about it. I just do not see how Ext can distribute these other libs and the adapters or even allow them to work together without it sucking those into the vortex of GPL-hell.

[dantheman]

Originally Posted by pabs

What about authors who which to provide their software under a license that is more permissive than the GPL, such as the MIT or BSD licenses?

What about Open Source software which is already licensed under a more permissive license and wishes to incorporate Ext?

The reason people are unhappy about the licensing change is not because they want to "have their cake and eat it too"; rather, they're concerned about the change from a less restrictive non-viral license (the LGPL), to a more restrictive viral license (the GPL).

You can't have everything.

There are (loosely) 2 classes of folks affected by this:
1) those who wish to pursue commercial aims and not buy a license.
2) those who wish to pursue non-commercial aims and not buy a license.

IMO, the move to GPL was aimed at the former group. or get off the pot, so to speak.

I'm japh, so I dig the artistic license, but I don't think everyone need be in sync with it.
(one might argue that's the main corollary of the artistic license ... )

I think the cake analogy is just as valid for the second group, albeit I don't
think this says anything negative about their motives. It simply is what it is.

Ext's authors have decided not to enable the second group who don't
wish to use the GPL. That's their story and they have every right to it.

--dan

[dantheman]

Originally Posted by benb

... I just do not see how Ext can distribute these other libs and the adapters or even allow them to work together without it sucking those into the vortex of GPL-hell.

A 3d party cannot change the licensing of a work they are not the author of.

This is the oldest, least-well-thought-out form of FUD against free software.

--dan

[pabs]

Originally Posted by jack.slocum

That same license was the reason Ext version below 2.1 posed a lot of questions for open source advocates about viability for use within any open source project under any license. It would be difficult to incorporate in any open source project because the restrictions added were not compatible with 99% of open source licenses out there. That was one of the motivating factors of the license change.

Hi Jack,

I can see how switching to a license without exceptions would make things simpler, but what about those of us who release Open Source software under non-GPL licenses such as the BSD, MIT, and Artistic licenses?

[DigitalSkyline]

My 2 cents ... clearly IANAL .... and my guess is YANAL ...

Just going to throw this out there, regardless of where you stand on the issue, I think that changing licensing models in a point release was a poor choice. It could have been handled better, and would have been more understandable when you released the next major release (3.0).

Straight to the point, It will be a cold-day in hell when I release 5+ years of server-side work to accomidate the new (open) license model. With that being said, my guess is I will still be in line for a developer license... perhaps with 3.0 (will depend on how much refactoring is needed)

I actually had planned on this regardless. But this midstream change means I'll have to stick with 2.0.x . Oh well, nothing much has changed with 2.1 anyways.