Re: Git GSoC 2014

On Sat, Feb 15, 2014 at 4:17 AM, Thomas Rast [off-list ref] wrote:

David Kastrup [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

Thomas Rast [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

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Now this can all be repealed by the "developing the atomic bomb does not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.