---- Identifier: ztcl Version: 0.5.1 State: stable Title: ZLib for TCL Creator: Marco Maggi Description: wrapper for the ZLib compression library Rights: GNU Lesser General Public License URL: Available: Thu Aug 21 11:04:07 CEST 2003 Architecture: all Subject: data compression ---- Hmm.. zlib is released under a BSD style license, Tcl is under a BSD style license, yet a thin(?) wrapper joining the two is released under the undeniably more complex LGPL license. My apologies for the suggestion - but I hope the author isn't doing this as a political statement and as a way to get the GPL/LGPL more widespread. I plead ignorance as to the amount of work required to present this wrapper - but note that the existence of this package under the LGPL may reduce the pool of developers who may otherwise at some point have provided this functionality under a more generally acceptable license. I hope also that Marco is aware that one doesn't have to be involved in commercial software distribution to find the GPL & variants unpalatable. I find almost all potentially legally enforcable licenses distasteful. BSD/MIT style licenses being the exception in that they generally don't attempt to place restrictions aside from things such as the very reasonable ban on misrepresentation. Now it seems like I'm the one making 'political' statements... no offence intended anyway, but I'm curious about this choice of license in this situation. I also think that particularly in relation to 'batteries included' distributions, or repositories such as CANTCL (where I noticed ztcl), this raises an interesting issue about the evolution of the overall state of Tcl when considered as a whole, encompassing (to some nebulous extent!) the generally available popular extensions. When someone creates an extension or wrapper with a mediocre design or implementation so that the library is workable & at least useful, but not really 'as good as it should be' - does this reduce the incentive for someone else who may have otherwise implemented something better from scratch? In the case of poorly implemented extensions (I'm NOT saying this applies to ztcl!) I guess that in most cases, those who recognise it could be improved can incrementally evolve it. On the other hand, in the case where it's released under a restrictive license, the option of incremental improvements is lost to a significant proportion of the Tcl population - they must reimplement...and for those who don't have the skills to reimplement the particular functionality, the likelyhood of other people wanting to 'scratch the itch' has been reduced a little. Does anyone else share this concern? I'd love to see this issue mentioned on pages such as [writing extensions] - but I'm not sure I should be the one to make recommendations on things such as this. The [license] page mentions that the TCT 'encourages' people to use a BSD-related license for extensions - If someone on the TCT sees this note and agrees with it - would they consider doing a little wiki gnomework and moving this commentary and/or linking some of these ideas into appropriate places so that extension writers at least give it some consideration? [JMN] ''Can't comment on licensing choices, but if you want zlib wrapped, there a several alternatives. I'll just plug mine at [http://www.equi4.com/critlib/] -[jcw]'' [Marco Maggi] (Nov 11, 2003) When I first wrote ztcl there were already zlib bindings for TCL around, for example Andreas Kupries' one. This was my second extension for TCL and I wrote it mainly as an exercise (the first extension was junk); compared to the other extensions, it IS poorly written and incomplete (in fact I'm rewriting some of it this very instant, mainly to experiment with a different error handling mechanism, a modified building infrastructure and, maybe, Microsoft Windows XP(tm) testing). I've licensed it under the LGPL because it was fun to do it (no kidding!), something like: "I want my LGPL'ed extension, too! Yeah!" Other extensions under a BSD-like license exist, so I'm not creating any problem to the TCL community. The same applies to [bztcl], the binding to the BZip2 library. However, as I wrote on comp.lang.tcl some time ago, the next version (1.0) of both ztcl and [bztcl] will be licensed under a BSD-like license. And I hope to find time, courage and some help from the author to write a TIP for inclusion of [rechan] into the core, so that [bztcl] can be used with it. Regarding the (L)GPL license: I love it. I think that all the discussions like "why are you doing it" and "these other license here is better" and "I have to recode what you've already coded" are a waste of time. I don't want to be rude: I'm must tired of reading this stuff on the Net. Everybody does programming for his own profit or fun, and everyone can choose the license he wants. This is freedom. ---- [[ [Category Package] | [Category Compression] ]]