On Thu, 2009-11-12 at 07:51 +0000, Simon Morris wrote:
I'm looking at ExtJS as a Javascript library for building UIs. It is dual licenced under GPL and a commerical licence.
http://www.extjs.com/products/license.php
Doing some research I came across one blog that suggests that the licencing model is harmful to Free Software
http://pablotron.org/?cid=1556
What is the lists opinion on this? Is ExtJS using the licence fairly
and
is it considered ethical to use the library based on the blogs criticisms?
Here's my opinion, FWIW, only based on the blog story:
Licensing a library under the GPL *is* rather restrictive, since it means only applications under the GPL may use the library. Until recently, the Qt was under the GPL, which meant that any and all native KDE applications must be under the GPL and no other licensing was possible (unless you purchased a license or otherwise got permission from Trolltech).
The practise is common, however, and as far as software freedom goes there is no ethical problem in licensing a library under the GPL, since this means that only free software can be written using this library. Richard Stallman has even advocated this practise to ensure as many programs as possible end up being free software.
But yes, it does mean you can't write BSD-licensed code with ExtJS. But in that case, people who want their code to be under a BSD license always have the option of not using the library. For people who want their application to be under the GPL v. 3.0 (and thus free software according to FSF's definition) there is no ethical problem at all in using the library.