Re: [Phpgroupware-users] Anouncement: eGroupWare fork of phpGroupWare

[Chris Weiss]

SI Reasoning (address@hidden) wrote:
>
>If my understanding is correct, the major issue between the two camps has to
>do with license preferences.

Close but not exactly, the major issue is about how to NOT blatently and 
recklessly
break copyright and licesning laws.  Ralf has done this in the past, is doing 
this
now ( From the web page: "relaxed license handling ... a LGPL'ed API which 
allows to
import other tool-classes with free licenses without relicensing" SCREEMS "i'm 
going
to ignore the license/laws and do what I want"), and I won't be suprized if he 
does
it more in the future.

"Plug-ins" are a good idea, and the whole structure of phpgw's "app" system 
totaly
allows for this.  It's very easy for an app to say "if foo.bar exists, use it",
email already does this for the pop3 protocol with php_imap and for its spell
checker.  The problem arises when a class is soooo good that it just neeeds to 
be in
the API, but for a class to be in the API it /has/ to be L/GPL compatable, if 
it's
not then it's against the GPL license to bundle it in the API.  That can be one 
the
drawbacks of the GPL, but it also happens to be one of its benifits.  3rd party 
apps
added in by the user can most certainly have any license they want. And they can
even break licenses if they choose, but they should also be prepaired to deal 
with
the consiquences of those actions.

I know this is all very political and kind of complicated, but the GPL is all 
about
making sure the author gets a fair deal in sharing his/her codebase.  End user
shouldn't need to worry about all this, but if you're curious, this what all the
comotion is about.