[Bf-committers] Can BGE be relicensed?

[Thomas Dinges]

Hi,
A friendly reminder that this mailing list is for active Blender 
developers to coordinate work, not Licence debates.

I don't think there is much interest in a re-licence here, we had such 
topics in the past. As the BGE is too much integrated, Blender itself 
would need to be re-licenced too.

Personally I am against a switch to LGPL , especially if the only reason 
for this is this "App Store" debate. So please, continue this topic on 
the blenderartists forum if you like but stop trying to convince us here 
that this is the only way and mandatory.

Best regards,
Thomas

Am 01.12.2012 19:56, schrieb Sinan Hassani:
> You can only link closed source code dynamically with LGPL. Most mobile
> app stores require everything to be statically linked anyway, so LGPL is
> not going to help. Your code effectively becomes GPL in the technical
> sense. We want the LGPL for app stores because it has less restrictions
> on distribution, see original post for why it works.
>
> You can also read the press release from VLC on why they went LGPL:
>
> Link: http://www.videolan.org/press/lgpl.html
>
> Part of the reason is for the VLC media player to be more multi-platform.
>
> PC stores allow for dynamic linking of code, so you can integrate
> something like FMOD there using dynamic linking if you want, but you
> still need to release source code for all the FMOD code you added to BGE
> (i.e. code change and FMOD API calls). This is the case for this FMOD
> example if BGE is GPL or LGPL.
>
> So we're asking for a license change only in certain cases of
> distribution. We're asking only for a license change when BGE is given
> to a third party repository for redistribution, in which case it would
> be available under LGPL.
>
> I think the LGPL is the best choice here, given that BGE is so
> integrated with Blender, going for a more liberal license would not
> work. We need a license that is both open source and free software.
>
> Sinan
>
> On 12-12-01 10:28 AM, Antony Riakiotakis wrote:
>> There's quite some difference between LGPL and GPL. LGPL allows the
>> source to be linked to closed code. Some of the developers are
>> actually not very friendly with this idea, not to mention being
>> friendly with Apple when it comes to 'walled gardens', monopolies,
>> patents etc. So combining the two, and proposing a licence change with
>> an air of "someone has done it, you HAVE to do it too" and with MAYBE
>> the promise of it then being allowed in the Apple store is not the
>> best diplomatic move you could do.
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-- 
Thomas Dinges
Blender Developer, Artist and Musician

www.dingto.org