[TIP] Result protocol

[Michael Foord]

Robert Collins wrote:
> On Mon, 2009-04-13 at 12:55 +0100, Michael Foord wrote:
>
>   
>> In fact I'm not sure that as a 'collection of facts' a protocol itself 
>> would even be licensable in the first place.
>>
>> FWIW the GPL license on subunit would also stop me using, re-using or 
>> contributing to it.
>>     
>
> This is only slightly useful to know - what would be much more useful
> is:
>  - what characteristics do you need changed in the licence to let you 
>    use/reuse subunit
>   

Because of the viral nature of GPL it is impossible to use it in [many] 
commercial situations.

I don't like the license and don't wish to put this restriction on code 
I release - this means I can't include GPL licensed code (LGPL is fine) 
in my projects. The BSD, MIT, Apache and MS-PL are all perfectly decent 
alternative licenses.

>  - what [other] characteristics do you need changed to be willing to 
>    contribute to it
>   

I'm interested in protocols for test result reporting - which sounds 
like part of what subunit does. It is not something I currently have 
bandwidth to contribute to, I'm still working through my backlog now 
that my book is complete. Improving unittest itself is something I am 
dedicating time to. FWIW the GPL license means that code from subunit 
can't be reused in unittest should any of it prove relevant.

> The GPL is my default licence, I use it until-and-unless there are
> reasons to use a different licence. It doesn't mean I'm unwilling to
> change.
>   
If you accept any contributions back to your code after original 
licensing you no longer own the copyright on the whole work - and need 
the permission of all contributors to relicense. This is why I tend to 
choose a more permissive default license. (BSD has been my choice but 
I'm considering switching to Apache because it explicitly handles the 
licensing of contributions.)

Michael

> -Rob
>   


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