Relicensing Krita as LGPLv2+

Sun Jan 8 14:50:12 UTC 2017

Hi,

Sorry for taking time to answer this, it's an important topic that needs 
wise reflexion.
I have the same concern as Sven about relicensing to LGPL. I would much 
prefer to get everything relicensed to GPL. And, wouldn't it be easier 
since LPGL v2 gives the right to do it?

(cf. https://www.gnu.org/copyleft/
"... The Lesser GPL, version 2, includes a provision that lets you alter 
the distribution terms to the ordinary GPL, so that you can copy code 
into another program covered by the GPL. Version 3 of the Lesser GPL is 
built as an exception added to GPL version 3, making the compatibility 
automatic." )

Also as a side note, I can tell we have gcompris in both macOS and iOS 
stores, and it is still GPLv3... I'm not sure how that happens we're not 
kicked from there.. but anyway, we plan to stop using those stores and 
make the new package for mac available on our website like it was 
before.. (and probably leave iOS...)

Timothée

Le 08/01/2017 à 01:58, Wolthera a écrit :
> These situations use an amazingly untested construction where there's 
> a glue library that can link to GPL without having the main plugin be 
> forced to follow GPL. The same can be said of MuseScore and VLC.
>
> Sven's concern is quite valid though. I think that we kind of need to 
> wonder whether questions about the appstore shouldn't just be 
> forwarded to the mailing list so that boud shouldn't have to answer 
> them, especially because I haven't come across such questions myself, 
> meaning that there's a significant chunk of people who do know how to 
> use it on OSX. The problem being that people who don't are about 
> computer literate enough to mail the foundation email but not use the 
> 20 other places they could ask about this. For OSX, the only thing I 
> am really worried about is signing of OSX packages, because if that 
> becomes mandatory we might as well give up.
>
> On Sat, Jan 7, 2017 at 10:01 PM, Paragon <french.paragon at gmail.com 
> <mailto:french.paragon at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     Blender and Natron are under a GPL license but there are comercial
>     plugins for both of them. (And even commercial "forks" of blender,
>     or at least builds of blenders that are sold with a commercial
>     closed software, like vray). So I don't think relicensing under
>     lgpl will change much on this case. Tell me if i'm wrong ???
>
>
>     Le 07. 01. 17 à 21:37, Sven Langkamp a écrit :
>>     On Thu, Jan 5, 2017 at 10:13 AM, Boudewijn Rempt
>>     <boud at valdyas.org <mailto:boud at valdyas.org>> wrote:
>>
>>         Hi,
>>
>>         Umpteenth draft of this mail, but I think we should consider
>>         relicensing
>>         the GPL code in Krita to LGPL.
>>
>>         One reason is that now that Krita is on its own, the mix of
>>         LGPL library
>>         code inherited from koffice/calligra and GPL library code
>>         inherited from
>>         Krita makes it hard to move code around; like we just did in
>>         the svg
>>         branch, creating the kritacommand library from code from
>>         krita/image
>>         and libs/kundo2. That code needs to be relicensed to LGPL
>>         before we
>>         merge the branch, of course.
>>
>>
>>     We could go to GPL for the complete repository and never have to
>>     relicense anything again. It also doesn't happen that often that
>>     files need to be moved across libaries and I have done some
>>     relicensing for this in the past.
>>
>>         Another reason is that there are too many macOS users who get
>>         confused
>>         when they install an application that's not in the app store,
>>         and we
>>         cannot publish GPL software in the app store. I wish I could
>>         just shrug
>>         that off, and I've done that until 3.1, but it's getting quite a
>>         support burden.
>>
>>
>>     This is somewhat of a grey area. At least the FSF thinks that
>>     even the LGPL isn't compatible with the App Store.
>>
>>     https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/left-wondering-why-vlc-relicensed-some-code-to-lgpl
>>     <https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/left-wondering-why-vlc-relicensed-some-code-to-lgpl>
>>
>>     VLC did the same relicensing and is in the App Store, so it works
>>     for now. But I wouldn't bet on that for the future.
>>
>>     Beside that I don't like that Apple indirectly dictates our
>>     licensing.
>>
>>         I haven't found a script yet that will figure out who owns
>>         copyright
>>         on the original GPL'ed krita code only -- running things like
>>         git fame
>>         only works on the whole repo, most of which is LGPL already...
>>
>>
>>     I'm remain sceptical about this for now.
>>
>>     There is another issue that should be considered. Due to the
>>     heavy use of plugins in Krita it would become very easy to extend
>>     Krita with closed-source plugins. Pratically is would be possible
>>     to make a close-source version on top of the existing code. This
>>     may sound hypothetical, but we had this in the past were the
>>     license prevented a commercial fork. Do we allow that? I think
>>     that's something that should at least be considered.
>>
>
>
>
>
> -- 
> Wolthera

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