[Box Backup] Development feedback & discussion for Box Backup 1.0?

Chris Wilson chris at qwirx.com
Tue Jan 18 00:29:45 GMT 2011


Hi all,

On Mon, 17 Jan 2011, Achim J. Latz wrote:
> On 14/01/2011 12:47, Charles Lecklider wrote:
>> I want the VSS code to be BSD, not GPL.
>
> Is there a specific reason you prefer BSD, even if the cost is having to 
> reimplement the VSS support classes? At the same time, this would of 
> course limit the usefulness of the GPL-"branch" of Box Backup, if you 
> cannot distribute it with the VSS component.
>
> I understand that Chris prefers the GPL to BSD, so this might be an 
> impasse for that particular functionality. How can we resolve that?

I prefer GPL for code that I write myself, because it provides stronger 
protection of my rights as the author. I have no objection to using or 
including code from any other author under any compatible license, nor 
even changing the license of Boxi or Box Backup if the benefits outweigh 
the costs.

There's no fundamental reason not to include code licensed under the BSD 
(without advertising clause) or dual-licensed (BSD and GPL) in Box Backup 
and Boxi, as the BSD license (without advertising clause) is compatible 
with the GPL.

>> I want to get my changes merged back into trunk first, otherwise my 
>> branch risks becoming a fork.
>
> I guess that this is something that is Ben's/Chris' call?

I would also really like to see Charles' work merged, sooner rather than 
later. Implementing snapshots and directory attributes will require 
changes to the directory format, and I don't want to make those changes 
until after Charles' changes are merged, because they would probably 
become incompatible forks.

Charles has as much right (if not more!) as I do to merge his changes into 
the trunk, and has not asked me to review and merge them myself as far as 
I can recall, and I'm currently waiting for him to do one of those two 
things.

>>  I have a working MMC snap-in (not open source), but due to the license
>>  change it's on hold. I either need to find the motivation to write
>>  some IPC code to talk to bbackupquery, or lib/backupclient needs to be
>>  LGPL, or some other license modification to allow linking.

I wrote only a tiny portion of the code in lib/backupclient, so I don't 
have much reason to object, except that adding a third license might 
further complicate the licensing situation.

Does anyone have any objections to either:

1. Relicensing lib/backupclient under a dual LGPL-BSD license, or

2. Relicensing lib/backupclient under the BSD license (without advertising 
clause)?

Cheers, Chris.
-- 
_____ __     _
\  __/ / ,__(_)_  | Chris Wilson <chris+sig at qwirx.com> Cambs UK |
/ (_/ ,\/ _/ /_ \ | Security/C/C++/Java/Ruby/Perl/SQL Developer |
\__/_/_/_//_/___/ | We are GNU : free your mind & your software |



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