Livecode's CEF Builds

[Mark Waddingham]

On 2018-09-11 05:03, Brian Milby via use-livecode wrote:
> Seems like the GPL issue is in LiveCode’s court. They can specifically
> allow linking to non-free libraries as a provision to the GPL license.
> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#FSWithNFLibs
> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLIncompatibleLibs

Yes and no.

I'm generally disinclined to add any (further) exceptions to the GPLv3 
License attached to the LiveCode repository - and certainly even more so 
for such a large and complicated project as CEF, especially where the 
reasons for doing so is to be able to incorporate patent-encumbered code 
where the licensing costs and methods for GPL binaries containing said 
code is unclear.

The two we currently have are for:

   1) revBrowser on Windows - due to the fact (at the time) ATL (a 
template-based C++ library which revBrowser uses for its embedding of 
the OS browser object) did not have any clear or sensible license 
attached to it which I could review for GPL compatibility.

   2) OpenSSL - the EAY and Apache 1.0 license this uses has an 
advertising clause which is incompatible with the GPL.

In regards to the effect of these then well (1) is largely moot - use 
CEF / browser widget instead. (2) is regrettable but not uncommon - the 
OpenSSL project have been trying to get hold of all copyright holders 
since March 2017 so they can switch to the GPL compatible Apache V2 
License so it is just a matter of time before that happens.

That being said - I wouldn't mind if someone had the time to making the 
dependence on OpenSSL more abstract, and switchable to a GPLv3 
compatible library (I must confess its been a while since I've looked at 
this, but there are at least a couple of options floating around).

I'd prefer LiveCode Community was GPLv3 pure - as any impurity creates 
friction and issues with combining with other GPLv3 software in your own 
applications.

Warmest Regards,

Mark.

*

-- 
Mark Waddingham ~ mark at livecode.com ~ http://www.livecode.com/
LiveCode: Everyone can create apps