Licensing issues suck.
They really do. There is little to nothing good about them, at all.
Currently, MonoDevelop is undergoing the same thing every open source project undergoes at some point, when they try and figure out what direction to go in with licensing. We have decided (well, I decided, and most people seem to agree), that moving towards a MIT X11 license is the way to go.
Because MonoDevelop is a port of SharpDevelop 0.98 (not 0.94 Bernhard) and SharpDevelop is licensed under the GPL, we are faced with some obvious issues. Our early tact was to ask SharpDevelop if they would be willing to relicense the existing #D code we have in our current svn HEAD revision as X11. They were unwilling to do so, somewhat understandable. My personal eventual decision was to publish my own code as MIT X11. This would still leave us with a GPL project, as the codebase would still contain GPL code, and the entire release would be under the terms of the GPL, but my personal contributions (past, present and future) would be licensed as MIT X11.
Apparently however, AlphaSierraPapa (the company sponsoring SharpDevelop) has decided that my personal decision to license the code I wrote as MIT X11 is against the terms of the GPL. This seems to be to be a very very strange reading of the GPL, but whatever. As far as I am concerned, the code would be available under the terms of the GPL, and would meet all requirements required by the GPL.
After a large list debate, which I won't link to, to spare your brain cells, AlphaSierraPapa has decided to send a PDF to the FSF. Uh, excuse me what? When the hell did that become necessary? Then they were kind enough to link to the pdf that they sent to the FSF. I was ready to drop this entire matter relatively quietly and begin on the solution that I had internally decided upon, but this was too much. It appears that the entire AlphaSierraPapa (please guys, next time pick a name I can type easier) group has the ability to selectively read the GPL and my emails. This pdf to me was full of misconceptions, and half-truths. Sigh. Big fucking Sigh. Never in the years of open source work I have done, have I ever been closer to sticking up my middle finger and doing my own thing. This entire issue gives open source a horrible bad name, and hinders its acceptance by everyone. That's the goal, right? Cause to me, it seems like you guys (AlphaSierraPapa) seem to think the GPL exists t protect your business model (which by the way, sounds kina pipe dreamy, but who am I to judge.)
Hopefully this will work itself out well, but as far as I am concerned, we are going to be putting into action Jeroen's top sekret plan #43.
Posted by tberman at July 15, 2004 06:08 PM