Open Source Licence (LGPL or GPL)

Richard Gaskin ambassador at fourthworld.com
Thu Sep 11 20:53:00 EDT 2003


Dave Cragg wrote:

> Any copyright attaching to my contributions belongs to RunRev.
> However, my work built on already existing material, and I don't know
> the exact status of that earlier library. (Although my understanding
> is that it was public domain.)  I don't really anticipate any problem
> here as long as libUrl is considered public domain (or even if it is
> subject to runRev's own license, as we're all going to be Rev
> licensees assuming we renew.). But it would be nicer to get this
> cleared up. I'll contact Kevin & Co. on this matter.

I'm just as happy not to include it in mctools.mc.  As with the Transcript
Dictionary importer, it should be trivial to make a plugin that downloads
and installs libURL without having to include it in mctools.mc directly.

An additional benefit to this approach is that for the low cost of a few
secnods' download time it ensures you're using the latest and greatest
libURL. 

> However, there is a more general issue with GPL or similar licenses
> relating to parts of the MC IDE that  we might include in our
> developed apps. In addition to libUrl, there are all the other things
> listed in the Resource Mover stack (message box, cursors, etc.). I
> don't think anyone would want to see their finished apps having to
> become open source just because they included the print dialog that
> comes with the IDE.

Precisely why I prefer public domain.  Simpler and freer than any open
source option.

-- 
 Richard Gaskin 
 Fourth World Media Corporation
 Developer of WebMerge: Publish any database on any Web site
 ___________________________________________________________
 Ambassador at FourthWorld.com       http://www.FourthWorld.com
 Tel: 323-225-3717                       AIM: FourthWorldInc




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