[Buildbot-devel] buildbot and GPL (move to MIT?)

Brian Warner warner-buildbot at lothar.com
Fri Apr 18 16:06:42 UTC 2008


> Given this, http://buildbot.net/trac/changeset/495, I think it will
> be staying v2. Brian is obviously authoritative here, though.

Yeah, Buildbot is currently GPLv2. I've got no plans to move to GPLv3.

I have had some requests, however, to move to a more liberal license,
something like the MIT license (which is the same one that Twisted is
distributed under).

On the whole, my philosophies are captured slightly better by GPLv2, so I
tend to use it as a default for many of my projects. But I don't feel
strongly enough about it to stick with it. There are users who are
inconvenienced by the hassle of fighting with their internal legal
departments over the use of GPL tools (mostly due to the lawyers being
confused, it's not like they're trying to bundle buildbot into a commercial
product), who have told me that their company policy is that if two tools are
equal in other respects, they'll go with the one with the more liberal
license. Apparently some people are just wired to be scared by what they've
heard about the GPL's viral nature.

So I'm considering moving buildbot to the MIT license.

What do people feel about that?

 -Brian




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