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Because it is GPL3, it won't be supported by Google on Android, by Apple probably anywhere, or by Microsoft anywhere. In other words, it's a lovely idea, but d
by raving-richard 11y ago
Because it is GPL3, it won't be supported by Google on Android, by Apple probably anywhere, or by Microsoft anywhere.
In other words, it's a lovely idea, but due to a poor choice of license, it won't get any adoption. C.f. Ogg Vorbis, where the license for the specification is public domain, and the license for the libraries are BSD-like.
To quote FSF:
Some libraries implement free standards that are competing against restricted standards, such as Ogg Vorbis (which competes against MP3 audio) and WebM (which competes against MPEG-4 video). For these projects, widespread use of the code is vital for advancing the cause of free software, and does more good than a copyleft on the project's code would do.[1]
I would suggest that this is a case where widespread use is more important than copyleft.
[1] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-recommendations.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-recommendations.html
- aaronharnly 11y agoAgree – using GPL rather than LGPL or BSD in the reference implementation will prevent this from being widely adopted. UPDATE: See lt's helpful comment above.
- davexunit 11y agoSo, the free world can use this library and the proprietary world will have to develop their own if they want to use the format. Proprietary software developers get to piggy back off of tons of free software, and then when someone decides that they don't want to enable that for their particular program/library, people complain about it. It makes no sense.
- brianwawok 11y agoI think license depends on your goal. If your goal is to create a web image format.. you need all the browsers to agree to include you. All browsers will not add a GPLv3 image type. Therefore it is dead before it launched.
- davexunit 11y agoThe author has expressed interest in dual-licensing, so there will probably still be options. GPLv3+ or LGPLv3+ sounds reasonable.
- snuxoll 11y agoLGPLv3 will still prevent use of Windows Phone, iOS and Android.
- davexunit 11y agoNo, that's backwards. Microsoft and Apple and Google prevent the usage of the GPL/LGPL. Don't blame the GPL for the bad behavior of large corporations that are using their immense power to try to stop copyleft.
- lucian1900 11y agoNo open source software can use this unless it is already GPLv3. Most of it isn't.
- skrause 11y agoA while ago I wanted to include a library in some GPLv3 software, but I couldn't because that library was GPL2-only with no "or any later version" clause. And both versions of the GPL are not compatible unless the GPL2 software has this "or any later version" clause. So even if you stay strictly within the free software universe, even only within in GPL universe, a strong-copyleft license is a bad choice for a library.
- nothrabannosir 11y agoThat's only the implementation, not the image format itself. Unless I am mistaking, you can't apply a software license like GPL to an image format, just patent it. Is that correct?
- wongarsu 11y agoYou're correct. There is no copyright for ideas, and licenses are just a way to "relax" your copyright. Unless it's patented you are free to make your own implementation of the format without any restrictions.
- lt 11y agoIn the forum thread I linked elsewhere, the author wrote: "In terms of licenses: GPL is all you get for now. I can always add more liberal licenses later. LGPL for a decoding library, or maybe even MIT? We'll see, I'm not in a hurry." https://boards.openpandora.org/topic/18485-free-lossless-image-format-flif/?do=findComment&comment=399211 https://boards.openpandora.org/topic/18485-free-lossless-ima...
- versteegen 11y agoWow, starting with an unusable license with the intention to switch to a more practical one later is a weird strategy. I guess that's one way to discourage people from adopting it before it's ready. (Edit: As I clarified, I meant usable for adoption in other non-GPL projects. But OK, I deserve the downvotes for adding very little, and will think twice before posting such a reply next time)
- davexunit 11y ago>unusable license Pure bullshit. Unusable for whom? Proprietary software developers? That's the intent.
- brianwawok 11y agoExcept... how does a new image format work in modern browsers? It gets included in Chrome, IE, Safari, and Firefox. Apple and Google won't touch GPLv3, so that means this image format is dead on arrival as a web format. Sure you can use it locally to compress your photographs, cool. But it won't be a web standard with GPLv3.
- kuschku 11y agoWell, we could just get everyone to use Firefox, and this image format will be a web standard. Google is currently using webp everywhere, too, despite no major browser actually supporting webp. (I do not consider Chrome a browser, but mal- and spyware)
- 11y ago
- pmelendez 11y ago> Because it is GPL3, it won't be supported by Google on Android, by Apple probably anywhere, or by Microsoft anywhere. Why not? As far as I know, GPL3 let you to dinamically link without having to open the source code the resulting software.
- versteegen 11y agoYou're thinking of LGPL. GPL has no such exception for dynamic linking. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLStaticVsDynamic https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLStaticVsDynamic
- skrause 11y agoYou can't link proprietary software with GPL libraries, only with LGPL libraries. For but Apple it's not even a licensing concern. Apple doesn't have a problem with the GPLv2, but doesn't touch the GPLv3 because of the patent clauses that it contains. The bash in OS X is a version from 2007 because that's the last GPLv2 version of bash. But Apple has no problem including git because that's also GPLv2 and not v3.
- anon1385 11y ago>Apple doesn't have a problem with the GPLv2, but doesn't touch the GPLv3 because of the patent clauses that it contains It's not the patent clauses that are the issue: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8868994 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8868994