Subject:
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Re: Ebrace and Extend (was Re: Non-commercial clause)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw
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Date:
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Sat, 5 Jun 2004 23:28:10 GMT
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Viewed:
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8969 times
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In lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw, Wayne Gramlich wrote:
> In lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw, Dan Boger wrote:
> > On Sat, Jun 05, 2004 at 06:23:43PM +0000, Wayne Gramlich wrote:
> > > The more sticky problem that occurs is when somebody does an "embrace
> > > and extend" strategy. For example, suppose I take the LDraw.Org
> > > library and add surface normals for every polygon. For many rendering
> > > algorithms, the surface normals allow more efficient back-culling. As
> > > another example, suppose somebody figures out how to add connection
> > > information to all parts. Before you know it, everybody wants to use
> > > the embraced and extended library, not the official LDraw.Org library.
> > > Again, I see the way to ensure that this does not happen is for the
> > > LDraw.Org Standards Committee to agressively keep pushing the LDraw
> > > format forward so that everybody always wants to use the official
> > > version.
> >
> > Wouldn't this problem be solved by the GPL approach, where any
> > modifications made have to be re-submitted to the original library?
> > This way, yes, you can make your cool changes, and sell them, but you
> > have to send the patches back to the original parts, where they can
> > either be integrated or not, depending on what the PT admins think.
It is my understanding of the GPL that no such re-submission is required. As
long as you agree to the GPL terms and give appropriate credit to the original
author, you can publish your mods as a separate work (or upgrade) under the GPL.
However most open souce authors generally encourage it.
I may have missed something though.
> (For those of you who do not know, GPL=Gnu Public License.)
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
> GPL is one strategy. I prefer an innovate over litigate strategy.
> The GPL is complex and in certain critical areas extremely vague.
> The GPL attempts to mandate innovation by requiring people to
> give back to the community.
>
> I think the better strategy is to have an active standards committee
> that ensures that the LDraw file format has always got the best features
> in it. For example, if the "embrace and extend" library has surface
> normals, and the standards committee adds surface normals to LDraw
> file format, which format will people write software for? the closed proprietary
> format or the open LDraw file format?
I agree this would be a better strategy. Encourage authors to submit format
improvements to Ldraw.org but do not require it. Note that any possible
improvement makes a lot of work for whoever is approving the official format, as
well as the author.
ROSCO
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