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If you had looked further into the subject, you would know that the LibreCAD developers attitude of 'it's ugly' includes 'it breaks a lot of stuff'. They can't

If you had looked further into the subject, you would know that the LibreCAD developers attitude of 'it's ugly' includes 'it breaks a lot of stuff'. They can't justify the workload of adding a module that would otherwise not exist because of licensing issues. And the FSF is supposed to be a champion of, well, free software, and I find it highly hypocritical of them to leave a project out to dry like this, especially if LibreDWG was released a few years before and released under the GPLv2.

spacelizard 13y ago
I read the article you linked and nowhere does it say that things will break. I know it's convenient for you to attack the FSF but the real problem is that RibbonSoft is a proprietary company that is more interested in dual licensing and refuses to accept the GPLv3.
- pbsdp 13y ago
  Do you not see how ridiculous you sound? Working around licensing by building a hackisb fork-based plugin system? We're in this business to write software for people to actually use.
  - spacelizard 13y ago
    Yes, I agree, it is ridiculous. That's what happens when you have to deal with software licensing. The whole point of licenses is to be incompatible, if all licenses were compatible then we would only have one license. I didn't come up with this system, if you must blame something, blame copyright. If you think it's bad this way, it's even worse when the two licenses in question are proprietary; often times in that situation you won't even have the option of a rewrite or a workaround. The nature of copyright is that not even free software licenses can give you the legal ability to do everything you could possibly think of doing, but they give you enough to ensure that every user is granted the four freedoms as long as the copyright holds. The FSF's position is that it would be more meaningful for the community to convince RibbonSoft to re-license as GPLv3 than it would be to have the short term gain of having DWG support available sooner.
    - pbsdp 13y ago
      Why shouldn't I blame the GPL? If they'd used a liberal OSS license, the code would be open source, unencumbered, and this problem wouldn't exist. The GPL introduces license incompatibilities; no GPL, no problem.
      - spacelizard 13y ago
        A lax permissive license could potentially lead to a whole host of other problems including licensing problems. These licenses are not free from incompatibilities either, see the infamous BSD advertising clause for an example of that. And a permissive license certainly would not guarantee the project stay "unencumbered" either. The most adequate solution to this would be to either work on persuading RibbonSoft to relicense under GPLv3, or to just do a workaround. Attacking the GPL serves no purpose, even if you disputed the choice of license it would make more sense to criticize RibbonSoft than it would to criticize the FSF just for writing the GPL.
        pbsdp 13y ago
        The BSD advertising clause has been dead for years, and it was primarily incompatible with ... the GPL. The GPL is incompatible with licenses that impose more restrictions than it does, even if those restrictions are fairly limited, like the advertising clause. I can't say I've ever heard of license incompatibility stupidity outside of the GPL. Lots of GPL problems, though: OpenSSL, dtrace, ZFS. Apple actually dropped GCC and invested in producing the liberally licensed clang BECAUSE of the GPLv3.
        spacelizard 13y ago
        It's a bit strange that you blame then GPL when it is just as much the authors of the incompatible licenses' fault, especially when in some cases it's completely their fault because the authors of those licenses deliberately wrote them with the intent of being incompatible with the GPL. Additionally I find it strange that you fault the values of the GPLv3 for Apple ditching gcc, rather than faulting Apple for being an abusive proprietary company that has problems with the values that the GPLv3 imposes. As if the FSF should be working to please Apple?
- synchronise 13y ago
  It's mentioned in either the LibreCAD mailing list or forum, can't remember which one.

spacelizard 13y ago

I read the article you linked and nowhere does it say that things will break. I know it's convenient for you to attack the FSF but the real problem is that RibbonSoft is a proprietary company that is more interested in dual licensing and refuses to accept the GPLv3.

pbsdp 13y ago
Do you not see how ridiculous you sound? Working around licensing by building a hackisb fork-based plugin system? We're in this business to write software for people to actually use.
- spacelizard 13y ago
  Yes, I agree, it is ridiculous. That's what happens when you have to deal with software licensing. The whole point of licenses is to be incompatible, if all licenses were compatible then we would only have one license. I didn't come up with this system, if you must blame something, blame copyright. If you think it's bad this way, it's even worse when the two licenses in question are proprietary; often times in that situation you won't even have the option of a rewrite or a workaround. The nature of copyright is that not even free software licenses can give you the legal ability to do everything you could possibly think of doing, but they give you enough to ensure that every user is granted the four freedoms as long as the copyright holds. The FSF's position is that it would be more meaningful for the community to convince RibbonSoft to re-license as GPLv3 than it would be to have the short term gain of having DWG support available sooner.
  - pbsdp 13y ago
    Why shouldn't I blame the GPL? If they'd used a liberal OSS license, the code would be open source, unencumbered, and this problem wouldn't exist. The GPL introduces license incompatibilities; no GPL, no problem.
    - spacelizard 13y ago
      A lax permissive license could potentially lead to a whole host of other problems including licensing problems. These licenses are not free from incompatibilities either, see the infamous BSD advertising clause for an example of that. And a permissive license certainly would not guarantee the project stay "unencumbered" either. The most adequate solution to this would be to either work on persuading RibbonSoft to relicense under GPLv3, or to just do a workaround. Attacking the GPL serves no purpose, even if you disputed the choice of license it would make more sense to criticize RibbonSoft than it would to criticize the FSF just for writing the GPL.
      - pbsdp 13y ago
        The BSD advertising clause has been dead for years, and it was primarily incompatible with ... the GPL. The GPL is incompatible with licenses that impose more restrictions than it does, even if those restrictions are fairly limited, like the advertising clause. I can't say I've ever heard of license incompatibility stupidity outside of the GPL. Lots of GPL problems, though: OpenSSL, dtrace, ZFS. Apple actually dropped GCC and invested in producing the liberally licensed clang BECAUSE of the GPLv3.
        spacelizard 13y ago
        It's a bit strange that you blame then GPL when it is just as much the authors of the incompatible licenses' fault, especially when in some cases it's completely their fault because the authors of those licenses deliberately wrote them with the intent of being incompatible with the GPL. Additionally I find it strange that you fault the values of the GPLv3 for Apple ditching gcc, rather than faulting Apple for being an abusive proprietary company that has problems with the values that the GPLv3 imposes. As if the FSF should be working to please Apple?
synchronise 13y ago
It's mentioned in either the LibreCAD mailing list or forum, can't remember which one.