Proposal to change license

[Pjot]

All,

As the BaCon project is getting more known to the world, people are are reaching out with questions regarding the license.

Currently, BaCon is released under the GPL v3 license. It turns out that it is a kind of restrictive in the sense that the resulting C source code cannot be used as-is in other projects.

It therefore might be a good idea to loosen up the license a little bit.

Most permissive license would be 'Public Domain', however, there seems to be a problem with the meaning of such license, depending on the country where you're living. Also, authorship can be ignored and denied.

Next open license is the MIT License. This seems the best permissive license for the BaCon project as far as I can see; it is compatible with GPLv3. Like the Wiki page mentions: "MIT licensed software can be integrated into GPL software, but not the other way around".

So, I am thinking to change the BaCon project to the more permissive MIT License.

If anybody has severe problems with this, or is aware of any negative impact, please let me know.

Thanks
Peter

[alexfish]

Think can take in some what of U may be trying to ,Say.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter , The Idea of a Converter is not new.

Yet What U have as in BaCon is U'rs , and in Simple terms work.

I respect that of the above.

the bit I do not take in is the who?

BR
Alex

[Pjot]

Hi Alex,

Just thought it would make sense to put the license question into this forum, as you guys have contributed a lot improving BaCon.

BR
Peter

[Deleted]

I agree with you on the change to a MIT license arrangement.

Thanks!

[Deleted]

Dec 18, 2015 21:36:46 GMT 1 Pjot said:

All,
Currently, BaCon is released under the GPL v3 license. It turns out that it is a kind of restrictive in the sense that the resulting C source code cannot be used as-is in other projects.
Peter

I don't get it what BaCon license has to do with generated C code? The fact that GCC has been released under GPL doesn't mean that everything compiled with it must be released under GPL. The fact that Geany has been released under GPL doesn't mean that every program written with it, must be released under GPL. You see, Lua's licence has been changed from GPL to Mit, because Lua is an embedable language and itself is being used in other programs. That's a different story.

[Pjot]

Hi Tomaaz,

BaCon generates intermediate files, which a C compiler can compile. The GPLv3 license occurs on these intermediate files also.

It turns out there is interest to embed these files in other projects.

BR
Peter

[Deleted]

Dec 20, 2015 18:05:34 GMT 1 Pjot said:

Hi Tomaaz,
BaCon generates intermediate files, which a C compiler can compile. The GPLv3 license occurs on these intermediate files also.

If you are talking about compiling BaCon version of BaCon, yes. GPL applies to intermediate C version of BaCon (because BaCon is distributed under GPL). If you are talking about compiling any other programs, no. You can distribute them under any license you want (that includes intermediate C files). If, by default, the converter inserts information about GPL to these intermediate files, you should simply remove this feature.

[Pjot]

If, by default, the converter inserts information about GPL to these intermediate files

This is exactly what is happening.

you should simply remove this feature.

And this is what my question is about - that would mean the same as declaring the intermediate files as Public Domain. But then I would loose any copyright (which I do not want to loose).

Therefore, I rather change to MIT license, which retains the copyright, but also allows usage of source files in other projects without forcing those projects to become open source or GPL also.

BR
Peter

[Deleted]

I see. MIT license is a good solution. Alternatively, you could add an option to the converter and let users to specify about which license should information be added to intermediate C files, but I have no idea how difficult that would be, so if I'm saying something stupid, just ignore me.

[Pjot]

Thanks for your feedback Tomaaz!

BR
Peter

[jcfuller]

Peter,
MIT License sounds good to me.

James