[Ilugc] Understanding Free and Open source code licenses
- From: lawgon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Kenneth Gonsalves)
- Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2011 18:11:28 +0530
On Thu, 2011-02-03 at 09:06 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote:
On 02/03/2011 09:03 AM, Kenneth Gonsalves wrote:
I do not hobnob with the biggies - but even at my level I value my
choice of license very heavily. But the point is that you are yet to
show how the choice of license is in *any* way relevant to the
success
or failure of a project.
I have no intention of showing that because that is not at all my
point. My only emphasis is that it affects the nature of development
at first I agreed with this - but on reflection I do not understand how.
The only foss project I am familiar with is the djangoproject which I
have bee watching for the past 5 years. It is BSD licensed. The nature
of their development is:
1. They have a BDFL who is the final arbiter of disputes - but he rarely
has to step in. Maybe once or twice a year
2. They have a set of core developers with commit rights. Commits are
made after filing tickets, pasting code and discussions - but
theoretically a core developer can commit even without discussion. But
this never happens - apart from fixing small bugs and correcting typos.
It is noted that the group of core developers is constantly growing and
changing - many people have left, none in a huff, all because their
interests have moved elsewhere.
3. Around the core developers there are hundreds of people contributing
patches and even bigger pieces of code - those who sustain and get the
trust of the core group are absorbed into the core.
4. and of course, a huge number of one-time contributors who just give
one patch or maybe do a translation or a correction of a translation.
The two BDFLs have been very successful in attracting and keeping
developers - at the same time are very strict about enforcing the basic
principles - like the amount of code to be allowed in a template or the
utmost attempts to avoid backward incompatibility - although not at the
expense of crippling development. They have also started a foundation to
run the show. This is the BSD style of development - but apparently the
GPL guys do things differently - can you enlighten us how and in what
way their nature of development is different?
--
regards
KG
http://lawgon.livejournal.com
Coimbatore LUG rox
http://ilugcbe.techstud.org/
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