[Openal-devel] Re-licensing OpenAL Soft

[Christopher Fitzgerald]

Greetings,

> It's very much a difficult thing for me, as it raises questions I can't
> readily answer, and questions what I really want out of this. The main point
> being, I want to keep with a stable, system-wide ABI with an implementation
> that's shared among all apps that use it and can be changed/updated on its own
> for improvements long after any given app using it stops updating, and not
> turn into something like FMOD where each app just uses the version it built
> with, which may or may not get minor updates before hitting EOL, and has next
> to no, or worse- conflicting, user configuration options.

Those are my concerns as well.

> Switching to an MIT or BSD-like license opens up the possibility of static
> linking with closed source apps, preventing such updates and user choice. I
> can't really answer how much of an issue that would be (ie, how many
> developers will or won't use an ABI-compatible dynamic lib when there's a
> choice), but I do know I've been asked several times for static linking..
> which the LGPL does allow, but limits it to open source uses so it can still
> be updated.

This is why I was interested in whether there would be terms for using one license over the other.

Perhaps even a custom license, or at least one that still allows OpenAL Soft to benefit from changes to it that don't relate to a particular back-end (and thus NDA covered APIs).  Static linking only allowed under platforms that don't offer the ability to dynamically link or replace libraries seems reasonable, too.

> I like the ideal of the LGPL, but its complexity makes it difficult/impossible
> to adjust for cases where it doesn't quite work. Switching to MIT/BSD would
> get rid of the complexity and allow it to work in those extra cases.

Understandable.  In any case, let's see what others have to say about this issue.

Regards,
 - Christopher 		 	   		  
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