[webkit-dev] WTF license terms

[Maciej Stachowiak]

On Nov 3, 2007, at 1:20 AM, Mike Hommey wrote:

> On Fri, Nov 02, 2007 at 08:34:21PM -0700, Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
>>
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>> I'd like to change the license terms for the contents of  
>> JavaScriptCore/wtf
>> from LGPL to Apple modified BSD, except for the copy of Google's  
>> TCMalloc
>> and the unicode/ directory. All the copyrights on files besides  
>> tcmalloc
>> and unicde are held by Apple and it looks like the only non-Apple
>> contributions are a handful of < 5 line build fixes which were too  
>> small
>> for copyright. Mainly I'd like to apply this to RefPtr, Vector, and  
>> the
>> Hash-related classes.
>>
>> I would like to do this to make the code usable by the widest  
>> possible
>> range of projects, including even proprietary code, and open source
>> projects with licenses that are not LGPL-compatible. This is basic  
>> data
>> structure code, and although it is highly optimized it is not really
>> specific to web browsing.
>>
>> I wanted to run this proposed license change by the community. I  
>> know there
>> have been some concerns about which code is BSD and which is LGPL.  
>> In this
>> case, I think maximum reusability is the right thing for this code.
>
> I don't see what the problem is with LGPL. It's not GPL, you know, and
> allows proprietary code to use it (under some conditions, though)

We'd like people to be able to fold these particular classes into  
their code without making a shared library or a relinkable object. I'm  
not even really sure what difference a shared library makes for code  
that is entirely implemented as template classes in headers.  
Effectively there is no ability to relink in such cases, since all the  
interesting code goes in the file that includes the header.

Anyway, I don't want to trigger a wide-ranging discussion about the  
pros and cons of different licenses. Mainly I'd like to hear if any  
major contributors would have a problem with this move.

Regards,
Maciej