Time for a Fork (fwd)

[Dan Kegel]

winedev at admdev.com wrote:
> 
> Wouldn't really work... Not only the extra work for Alexandre,

No extra work neccessary; he could appoint a BSD fan to 
maintain the traditional tree, and shift all his efforts to the LGPL tree.

> but the fact the trees will become totally unsyched.

Yes, that might happen.  That's to be expected.  Compare, say,
netbsd and freebsd; they're unsynched now.

> Then there's pollution of code and licensing from one tree to the next.

I don't expect that would be a problem, as any patches sent to the
old list would be fair game for either tree.  
Authors who feel strongly in favor of the LGPL would send patches
to the new list; the BSD tree maintainer, whoever that is, would
not read that list.
 
> The problems are too many to count. This is really an all-or-nothing
> decision. 

For the LGPL advocates, it's an all-or-nothing shift; they vote with their feet.
For the BSD advocates, it's business as usual (except that they have to find a new tree maintainer).

> If we loose developers from making a license shift, then so be
> it... I think its inevitable, but I also think they will slowly start
> drifting back when they realise that it DOES work and isn't quite the evil
> they thought :)

I rather agree.  However, trying to switch the existing patch mailing
list and CVS tree to a new license in place is bound to create too
much confusion.  Creating a new tree and patch mailing list, and leaving
the old ones to the BSD fans, is the best way to achieve a clear transition.

- Dan


> On Sat, 9 Feb 2002, Dan Kegel wrote:
> > It seems clear to me that Wine is just like Unix:
> > some people prefer a BSD license, and others prefer a GPL license.
> >
> > BSD can never convince Linux people to switch licenses, and vice versa.
> >
> > So be it.
> >
> > Rather than endlessly debate the issues, I suggest we simply agree
> > on an amicable parting of ways.
> >
> > The current cvs tree and patch mailing lists would remain as is.
> >
> > A new LGPL-licensed tree and associated wine-lgpl-patches mailing list
> > would be created to accept LGPL-licensed patches.
> >
> > This would put an end to a lot of bickering, and would let us
> > see how the two license agreements work out in practice.