Recommendation for a CL data structures library
in [Lisp]
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From: Raffael Cavallaro on 20 Mar 2010 00:06 On 2010-03-19 12:57:58 -0400, Pascal J. Bourguignon said: > Notice that the GPL is not contradictory to commercial interests, on the > contrary. In fact, it would be in the best interest of any commercial > endeavour to distribute the sources of their software and firmware under > the GPL license, since otherwise a competitor could patent the core > techniques. Unless they themselves already hold said patents, which is how closed source often works (cf. Apple, Microsoft, ...) > Or if the original company patents it itself, then it will > have published it already so no evil would come from giving a copy of > the source along with any product. > > > > Now, perhaps I should explicitely state in each file that commercial > licenses are also available upon request, but I guess that if commercial > entities were interested I would have contacted with me already. Not necessarily. Stating the price for a royalty free commercial license for each/all of your libraries might very well provide you with non-negligble revenue. For example, I know for a fact that at least a couple of the regular correspondents to this newsgroup payed a significant amount to support development of an open source lisp IDE... If I knew that your libraries were available for a reasonable cost, I might very well buy a license. What's a reasonable cost? Well, LispWorks sells an entire common lisp implementation, with GUI framework and fully featured IDE and editor for US$1500.00, so I would think that a handful of lisp libraries would be significantly less than that. warmest regards, Ralph -- Raffael Cavallaro
From: RG on 20 Mar 2010 01:08 In article <ho1grl$31j$1(a)news.eternal-september.org>, Raffael Cavallaro <raffaelcavallaro(a)pas.espam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote: > On 2010-03-19 14:48:25 -0400, RG said: > > > Publishing code under the GPL does not preclude the copyright holder > > from also making the code available under a commercial license. If you > > want to use PJB's code in a commercial product why don't you just ask > > him for a price quote? > > That's certainly true, and if I wanted/needed any of his libraries for > use in a commercial product, I certainly would (assuming a commercial > license were within budget, etc.). However, as I'm sure you know, the > library space is fairly competitive, and many of the competitors' > offerings are not GPL licensed, with the predictable result that these > other libraries will see wider use. That's true. But that is *very* different from what you first said: > no one who currently works on a commercial, > published product, or who contemplates working on a commercial > published product in the future, can take the risk of using your > libraries because they are GPL licensed. Being uncompetitive is not at all the same thing as being an unacceptable risk. rg
From: Raffael Cavallaro on 20 Mar 2010 02:01 On 2010-03-20 01:08:20 -0400, RG said: > That's true. But that is *very* different from what you first said: > >> no one who currently works on a commercial, >> published product, or who contemplates working on a commercial >> published product in the future, can take the risk of using your >> libraries because they are GPL licensed. > > Being uncompetitive is not at all the same thing as being an > unacceptable risk. The one flows from the other. He presents his libraries as GPL. Many will see this as an unacceptable risk - i.e., they will not use his libraries for fear that one day they may find their way into a commercial product (this has happened to commercial organizations in the past). Other libraries that are not GPL do exist. These libraries will see wider use. There is no contradiction here - GPL licensed works can also be commercially licensed, but there is no guarantee that they will be should such works find their way into a commercial published product. The copyright holder has every right to simply demand that the published work be open sourced rather than grant a commercial license. warmest regards, Ralph -- Raffael Cavallaro
From: Pascal J. Bourguignon on 20 Mar 2010 04:51 Raffael Cavallaro <raffaelcavallaro(a)pas.espam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> writes: > On 2010-03-19 12:57:58 -0400, Pascal J. Bourguignon said: > >> Notice that the GPL is not contradictory to commercial interests, on the >> contrary. In fact, it would be in the best interest of any commercial >> endeavour to distribute the sources of their software and firmware under >> the GPL license, since otherwise a competitor could patent the core >> techniques. > > Unless they themselves already hold said patents, which is how closed > source often works (cf. Apple, Microsoft, ...) > >> Or if the original company patents it itself, then it will >> have published it already so no evil would come from giving a copy of >> the source along with any product. >> >> >> >> Now, perhaps I should explicitely state in each file that commercial >> licenses are also available upon request, but I guess that if commercial >> entities were interested I would have contacted with me already. > > Not necessarily. Stating the price for a royalty free commercial > license for each/all of your libraries might very well provide you > with non-negligble revenue. For example, I know for a fact that at > least a couple of the regular correspondents to this newsgroup payed a > significant amount to support development of an open source lisp > IDE... > > If I knew that your libraries were available for a reasonable cost, I > might very well buy a license. What's a reasonable cost? Well, > LispWorks sells an entire common lisp implementation, with GUI > framework and fully featured IDE and editor for US$1500.00, so I would > think that a handful of lisp libraries would be significantly less > than that. Yes, I might try to do that. But I guess I'll have first to split my libraries, for it seems that in general people only want one feature and not the whole code base. -- __Pascal Bourguignon__
From: Alex Mizrahi on 20 Mar 2010 06:20
PJB> I reclaim as compensation to be able to see the source of any PJB> application using it that I might buy. Is it too high a price? It depends on what kind of library it is and what kind of application. I guess usually it is too high. PJB> Notice that the GPL is not contradictory to commercial interests, on PJB> the contrary. I think that GPL'ing application code can absolutely ruin application's commercial viability in all but few cases. PJB> In fact, it would be in the best interest of any commercial PJB> endeavour to distribute the sources of their software and firmware PJB> under the GPL license, since otherwise a competitor could patent the PJB> core techniques. Or if the original company patents it itself, then PJB> it will have published it already so no evil would come from giving a PJB> copy of the source along with any product. This is bullshit. PJB> Now, perhaps I should explicitely state in each file that commercial PJB> licenses are also available upon request, but I guess that if PJB> commercial entities were interested I would have contacted with me PJB> already. Ha, you see, so your "business model" depends on application vendors _not liking_ GPL enough to pay you. So please don't tell us that GPL is good for everyone. Library developers might be interested in using GPL for their libraries so they can demand compensation for their work. Application developers might be interested in libraries which are not GPLd so they can make their application for less money and have higher profit margins. PJB> If I ever win big a lottery, or if I ever become a civil "servant", I PJB> may publish my code under BSD or MIT. But until one of these unlikely PJB> events occurs, I will stick to GPL or commercial licensing, with a PJB> very strong favor for the former. Well, it's your choice, so why not. Just do not pretend that what is good for you should be also "in the best interest of any commercial endeavour". It is simply not true. I usually use LGPL (or LLGPL) for libraries I write for fun -- because I do not expect to gain any monetary compensation for these libraries, but if somebody takes my lib and makes some improvements -- I'd like to see those improvements. Also I think LGPL is useful when library is developed by a company for its internal use -- when other companies use this library and work on it too, original company might enjoy improvements and bugfixes they make. PJB> (*) But much less hard than Robert Sedgewick, let's thank HIM for the PJB> really hard work, which americans did by paying his tenure, and the PJB> other peoples of the Earth by supporting (willingly or not) the PJB> american debt. We've already paid for his ideas. Oh, don't forget that Sedgewick did not invent it all by himself. Red-black tree is inspired by B-tree by Rudolf Bayer. And don't forget centuries of mathematical thought which made these things possible at all. Also don't forget that there are other forms of self-balancing binary trees -- e.g. AVL trees: "The AVL tree is more rigidly balanced than Red-Black trees, leading to slower insertion and removal but faster retrieval." So it's not like we absolutely need those red-black trees... AVL trees were invented by Soviet computer scientists, by the way, did you pay them for their ideas? :) |