On Sat, Feb 15, 2014 at 4:17 AM, Thomas Rast <tr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > David Kastrup <dak@xxxxxxx> writes: > >> Thomas Rast <tr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes: >> >>> Motivation: I believe that migrating to libgit2 is the better approach, >>> medium term, than rewriting everything ourselves to be nice, clean and >>> thread-safe. I took a shot a while ago at making the pack reading code >>> thread-safe, but it's adding mess when we could simply replace it all by >>> the already thread-safe libgit2 calls. It also helps shake out >>> incompatibilities in libgit2. >> >> That would either require forking libgit2 for Git use or stop dead any >> contributions to that rather central part of the git codebase from >> contributors not wanting their contributions to get reused in binary >> proprietary software. >> >> It would also mean that no serious forward-going work (like developing >> new packing formats or network protocols) can be done on a pure GPLv2 >> codebase any more. So anybody insisting on contributing work under the >> current Git license only would be locked out from working on significant >> parts of Git and could no longer propose changes in central parts. >> >> Now this can all be repealed by the "developing the atomic bomb does not >> mean that one has to use it" argument but even if one does not use it, >> the world with and without it are different worlds and occupy mindshare >> and suggest "solutions" and "diplomacy" involving it. >> >> So this is definitely a large step towards a situation where erosion of >> the existing license and related parts of the community becomes more >> attractive. >> >> There is the rationale "we can always say "no" at the end". How do you >> explain this "no" to the student who invested significant amounts of >> work into this, in a project proposed by the Git developers? >> >> This definitely should not be "we'll think about it if and when that >> project is finished" material. > > Yes, all of this is true. However, you are painting a big devil on the > wall. ... > Second, how many contributions would actually have been prevented by > GPLv2+LE licensing? Interesting data point, I helped get libgit2 started in the first few days of its existence and discussed the license on the mailing list. I eventually stopped contributing, partly because of the GPLv2+LE license it uses. :-) I am not as interested in using the GPL for my work as David Kastrup is, but I wasn't really thrilled with GPLv2+LE. -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html