[Bf-committers] extension clause

Campbell Barton ideasman42 at gmail.com
Mon Nov 22 09:57:19 CET 2010


On Mon, Nov 22, 2010 at 7:20 AM, Alex Combas <blenderwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 21, 2010 at 9:05 PM, Campbell Barton <ideasman42 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> While this is what blenders GPL exception states it does seem quite
>> fuzzy as to what it does/doesn't apply to.
>> - python its self has many compiled extensions, ok so it
>> cant/shouldn't apply to this case but where does it end?
>> - what if the extension loads a module such as PIL, numpy, or
>> PyGame???, I'm not sure in this case..
>> - what if you write your own module but make it BSD/GPL/Apache and
>> have it as a package which can be installed by debian's package
>> manager for eg.
>>
>> So I'm guessing this is how it works...
>> - You can write your own BSD module and include no problems - since
>> this is what we do with python.
>>
>> - You can write your own GPL module as long as you include the same
>> exception that blender its self has.
>> - You CAN'T make use of a 3rd party GPL module unless they make the
>> same allowances that blender does.
>>
>
> Hi Campbell,
> I have a question for you.
>
> The way it was explained to me is that you can license  your Blender
> python script
> any way you want (closed, BSD, GPL, foo, bar, baz) as long as it only
> links to things
> which were shipped as part of Blender and this includes the
> interpreter and any modules
> which are shipped along with the interpreter.
>
> However if  your Blender python script links to anything which is not
> distributed as part of
> the Blender package then it is an extension and must be GPL licensed.
>
> Is my understanding correct?

I did say in my post before that I'm not clear on this but I think
this is correct.
My point was that there shouldn't be any difference between using
pythons "pickle" module for eg, or some other BSD licensed module, the
current wording makes out there is.

> Also, how do you feel about the idea of relicensing Blender to be LGPL
> similar to glibc?
> In light of what the FSF has said particularly about LGPL and glibc.
>
> Blender has obviously gotten by without the proprietary software
> developers so far, is that
> something you want to see continue, or do you think it would be a good
> thing to open up this market?
>
> "This is why we used the Lesser GPL for the GNU C library. After all,
> there are plenty of other C libraries; using the GPL for ours would
> have driven proprietary software developers to use another—no problem
> for them, only for us."
> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html
>
> Or to translate that into Blender terms...
> "There are plenty of other (Animation/Modeling/Compositing) libraries,
> using the GPL for ours would have driven proprietary software
> developers to use another--no problem for them, only for us."

Probably the first question to ask is if all blender developers &
blender foundation wanted to re-license blender as LGPL is this even
possible?
Take a look at ./intern/ ./extern/ folders since these contain the
most code that was not written by blender developers (external libs we
build into blenders binary but distribute with blender).

-- 
- Campbell


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