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Re: I/ON Media Player Framework

nathan.freitas wrote:

Hmm. Well, we did our best to grant the exception where we needed to. We feel that the APL libraries don't mind the linking into our GPL code and we've gotten clearance from the only other GPL'd code that is part of the project, but is not ours, to do the linking to APL.

The issue arises if other people want to contribute or fork or what not. You may have special clearance, but not everyone does.

While we'd like to remove the dependence on non-GPL libraries, the Apache Commons core and the ROME libraries provide a pretty amazing set of functionality that we're not about to or currentyl able to reimplement.

Depends on how much you're using, and whether GPL compatible replacements exist. In general, I find 3rd party libraries are vastly overused in open source projects, and cause significant ease-of-use problems for both developers and end users. Apache Commons is a particular code smell. ROME I don't know anything about; and I haven't looked at your code base so I don't know how much you're using of what or how easy it would be to replace it. However, if you're absolutely dependent on 3rd party, non-platform-bundled libraries, then you really need to release under a different non-GPL license.

I'm a GPL person myself, and prefer GPL for my own work; but when I release a project that's critically based on a 3rd party library, I make sure to release it under the same license as the library. (e.g. XQuisitor is released under the MPL because Saxon is published under the MPL.) It just makes life easier for everyone.

Since we are inherently tied to non-GPL media libraries like Quicktime for Java, Windows Media Player, and the Java Media Framework, we sort of just accepted that fact that I/ON is a GPL application with dependence on non-GPL libraries, for now. Releasing I/ON under APL or LGPL just didn't achieve what we wanted - keeping the core application and any derivatives free and open.

The rule here is that you can link the GPL stuff against libraries distributed on the platform. That means on a Mac you can link against QTJ and on Windows you can link against Windows Media Player, but not vice versa. (This is why I don't publish Amateur for Windows.) I don't know what the licensing of Java Media Framework is or how it plays in here.

As is, your application isn't really free or open, even if that's the intention. The mix and match licensing of the different libraries more or less prevents anyone from building on it. :-(

--
Elliotte Rusty Harold  email@hidden
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References: 
 >I/ON Media Player Framework (From: Nathanial Freitas <email@hidden>)
 >Re: I/ON Media Player Framework (From: Elliotte Harold <email@hidden>)
 >Re: I/ON Media Player Framework (From: "nathan.freitas" <email@hidden>)



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