Opal QML components for app development

[ichthyosaurus]

@poetaster

Although I prefer using the GPLv3, I think that given the aim of the project being to augment silica stuff, it makes more sense if we go permissive or at least GPLv2 ? 2 bits.

I decided against going permissive because I really don’t want my stuff ending up in some closed source walled garden (with the current Silica situation we’re already caught in one anyway…). It’s not only meant to augment Silica, rather it’s meant to support a growing copyleft ecosystem, and maybe someday Jolla feels compelled to open Silica.

That’s my rationale but I don’t set rules for other developers, as long as they use licenses that are free and compatible with the GPL. GPL has a tendency to make other things become GPL (here) but I’m mostly thinking of the green part in this list.

@nephros

or a mix, dual-license things, i.e. whatever the original code had (assuming it’s brought over from an existing app), plus a common lic for distribution under Opal?

If it’s code that was ported over from another app, then that might be a good way to go. In other cases, I don’t really care as long as licenses are upwards compatible with GPLv3 because the apps I write are GPLv3.

@flypig asked me about that too, but this part didn’t make into the article:

9. Why are there multiple licences? What does this mean in practice for developers?

Opal is built in the spirit of Free Software but there’s no policy as to what this means exactly for contributions: if you want to contribute a QML module under any free license (be it permissive or copyleft), you are invited to do so! The only requirement is strict reuse compliance, so that the licensing of all parts is clear.

In practice, this is mostly invisible to developers and users: if you are developing Free Software, then proper attribution is probably the only thing you have to be concerned about. This is where Opal.About comes in: you provide some details and a SPDX license ID, and the “About” page module generates the rest for you.

That being said, all things currently in Opal are mostly licensed under GPL, CC-BY-SA, or CC-0 (public domain).

So, to answer your questions:

@nephros

• should contributions strive to use the same license for code (which would likely be GPL3+) in Opal?
• otherwise, are we Ok with ending up with a bunch of different licenses under the Opal umbrella? Could be a hassle for users of Opal modules.

I prefer GPLv3+ and I encourage everyone to do that too but I think it’s not too much of a hassle if a module uses a different free license. Modules come with their own Attribution components that can be included in the “About” page, and I think in most cases that’s all you have to think about.

But I’m absolutely no expert on licensing, so… please tell me what you think! (@poetaster I assume you know a thing or two about licensing?)