Message: 3
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2009 21:15:35 +0100
From: Pedro Lopez-Cabanillas <address@hidden>
Subject: [fluid-dev] Licenses compatibility
To: address@hidden
Message-ID: <address@hidden>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Miguel Lobo wrote:
In case it helps here are source file of CoreMidi input for
LinuxSampler:
Those files are GPL-licensed, while fluidsynth is distributed under
the LGPL. Anyone thinking of using those files as inspiration for a
fluidsynth driver should be very careful.
You are kidding, I suppose.
First, because it's C++ code and Fluidsynth is plain C. So in the
first place,
anyone would prefer to look to another project written in C, like
PortMidi
(http://portmedia.sourceforge.net/portmidi/) released under a BSD
license.
Second, because the LinuxSampler license has been polemic in the
past, maybe
inspiring your message. Third, because Stephane Letz is the author
of the
MidiShare driver for FluidSynth, and one of the authors of
MidiShare itself.
Maybe he also wants to trigger some fun, here.
If you like to be inspired by a chunk of C++, I would say that
RtMIDI has
CoreMIDI support and a BSD-like license
(http://www.music.mcgill.ca/~gary/rtmidi/). It doesn't infect your
eyes with
viric licensing terms, even if you take a very intimate look to the
sources ;-)
But seriously speaking again. When I release some program under the
GPL, I
don't forbide anyone to look to my sources for inspiration, even if
the
looker is not going to release his work under the same license.
That would be
against the the free software philosophy of sharing the knowledge.
What you
can't do is to take my whole GPL'd work and close it, or copy lage
chunks of
code into a proprietary product.
Copy+Paste may violate the license terms. But reading GPL code for
reference,
inspiration or learning is using it in a legitimate way, IMHO.
Regards,
Pedro