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Re: [GSWHackers] Re: OGo/GNUstep cooperation Re: Re[2]: Frameworks


From: NeXT
Subject: Re: [GSWHackers] Re: OGo/GNUstep cooperation Re: Re[2]: Frameworks
Date: Mon, 08 Mar 2004 23:08:39 +0900

I cannot help but to ask this question :-) Helge, do you or your comapny have any problem in licensing or donating SOPE to FSF ? If so, we have to find another way(though I prefer first method be possible...). I think SOPE to FSF will solve most problems during this discussion. (I'm afraid that this is rather impossible, so the discussion comes here...)

--------
Sungjin Chun,  aka NeXT

On 2004-03-05 11:09:56 +0900 Helge Hess <helge.hess@opengroupware.org> wrote:

On 05.03.2004, at 02:17, Gregory John Casamento wrote:
Didn't you know about this?  See link:
http://www.fsf-europe.org/projects/fla/fla.en.html

No, interesting!

But how does it help with the fact that all contributions to GNUstep are missing that and are therefore missing the whole reason for submitting under such an assignment (which is to streamline copyright)? I guess this should be fixed ASAP (at least by all European GNUstep contributors), otherwise the state of the GNUstep CVS is in flux regarding that.

It's an agreement which would allow you to contribute SOPE to the FSF. It's not an assignment since, as you say, it's not possible in the EU. But it does allow you to license it to the FSF such that it is effectively the same as an assignment. :)

Well, FSF goal is to promote free software. OGo and SOPE are both completely free software. So it is already contributed to the free software movement, I'm sure RMS/FSF agrees (you don't even need to assign copyright to call it GNU software, I asked him, the only requirement for GNUxxx is to promote free software). FSF copyright assignment is only a legal "insurance" in case someone is suing the developer.

I'll state it quite simply here: Unless your WO can be submitted to the FSF and integrated with the existing GSW framework, then I don't believe that it should "replace" it as you seem to suggest.

Unfortunately the FLA doesn't support that argument at all since GNUstep CVS already (/only) contains non-FLA code, so itself would need to be contributed to FSF first.

Notably Manuel also included the NGAntlr library I initially wrote (we remember that he claimed in the thread I make no contributions ...) in dev-libs/gnustep-web - I never signed any FSF copyright assignment and the code still states that this is copyrighted by me (Manuel added himself).
So copyright assignment is apparently no issue.

Anyway, as I wrote before, if FSF assignment is a requirement, we won't be able to share. That copyright assignments are impossible was only a side note on that (though your pointers are quite interesting and relevant). I also did not suggest that SOPE "should" replace GSW, I said that it is somewhat obsolete with the LGPL release of SOPE. Opinions may differ.

The most amazing thing wrt gnustep-web I found is that while the framework itself is free software, there are apparently *no* free software applications based on it! In contrast - gnustepweb.org is advertising the proprietary applications and websites as well as the two companies behind gnustep-web. In the same run Manuel and David are suggesting that they don't trust me because I'm working for a company (which in contrast to their own companies *only works on free software*).
I hope you understand that I'm a bit confused about that situation.

Anyway, this is again going into a "rant direction" which we wanted to avoid (I ensured to stay to facts nevertheless ;-).


The discussion started out when we talked about the "GNUstep Kits" project which in my understanding (unlike core GNUstep CVS) does *not* require a FSF assignment (and therefore consideres inclusion of skyrix-xml, which I would very welcome).

WRT the web application library for "GNUstep Kits" I would strongly advise to make an *unbiased* examination of SOPE. While its sad that so much work was already invested in gnustep-web, SOPE is IMHO clearly superior and provides far more functionality. Now I'm biased and gstep-web is biased as well, so we need unbiased opinions ;-) To help with such an evaluation the SOPE team suggested to work on adding GSWEB compatibility so that existing GSW applications also work with SOPE. This would lead to much better factual evaluations on code quality and performance. I have to admit that we are somewhat stuck on this front due to the lack of free gnustep-web applications (if someone knows some, please send pointers!).

best regards,
  Helge






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