LinuxQuestions.org
Visit Jeremy's Blog.
Go Back   LinuxQuestions.org > Forums > Linux Forums > Linux - News
User Name
Password
Linux - News This forum is for original Linux News. If you'd like to write content for LQ, feel free to contact us.
All threads in the forum need to be approved before they will appear.

Notices


Reply
  Search this Thread
Old 05-28-2015, 09:44 AM   #1
jeremy
root
 
Registered: Jun 2000
Distribution: Debian, Red Hat, Slackware, Fedora, Ubuntu
Posts: 13,597

Rep: Reputation: 4080Reputation: 4080Reputation: 4080Reputation: 4080Reputation: 4080Reputation: 4080Reputation: 4080Reputation: 4080Reputation: 4080Reputation: 4080Reputation: 4080
Relicensing Dolphin: The long road to GPLv2+


Quote:
Since its resurfacing as an open source project in 2008, Dolphin has been licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2 (GPLv2). This license, created in 1991, is still a fairly common license used in the open source world. But as with anything that deals with technology, times are changing at a rapid rate. More recent projects are using GNU Public License version 3 and Apache 2.0, for their additional freedoms, protections from outside liability, and improved inter-license compatibility. Unfortunately these newer licenses are not compatible with GPLv2, and any project using these licenses cannot link to Dolphin and thus, Dolphin cannot link to them.

Back in 2008, GPLv3 had just come out and most projects were GPLv2, so licensing the project GPLv2 seemed like the smartest decision at the time. Since then, one of Dolphin's original founders, ector, has repeatedly mentioned how he regrets licensing Dolphin under GPLv2 instead of GPLv2+. GPLv2+ allows a later version of the GPL license to be substituted in place of GPLv2. This includes new licenses as they are released, so while GPLv2+ only means GPLv2 and GPLv3 right now, it will include GPLv4 onward once they're released. This gives a project a lot of leeway when linking with other software that a static license does not. Case in point, ector recently relicensed another extremely successful emulator he founded, PPSSPP, under GPLv2+.

Though many knew that licensing issues were inevitable, relicensing was repeatedly shelved so everyone could remain focused on improving the emulator. And for many many years, GPLv2 was perfectly fine for Dolphin with licensing issues staying out of the way of development.

Licensing problems jumped to the forefront of development early last year when it was brought to our attention that Dolphin's Android builds were linking to Apache 2.0 licensed APIs. As noted, Apache 2.0 is not compatible with GPLv2. The Free Software Foundation cited that "the patent termination and indemnification provisions as restrictions not present in the older GPL license." This meant that we were technically in violation of our license even though we weren't aware of it until that point.

A minor maintenance pull request was cancelled in order to prevent more licensing issues while bigger decisions needed more time. This left a dark cloud hovering over Dolphin's Android release with only two options; either relicense the whole project or the Android version had to be scrapped. It took years of development to get it this far after fighting immature drivers, weak hardware and other limitations in order to bring GameCube/Wii emulation to Android devices. To see a roadblock such as this come up just as chipsets are getting to the point where they can run games at full speed was a brutal wakeup call.

Similar incompatibilities were discovered within Dolphin making the situation much more urgent. The Qt5 frontend would be limited, as newer modules are not compatible GPLv2. Other new features, including Virtual Reality support, would be nearly impossible to implement without relying on libraries that could not be used under the current licensing situation. The situation had finally reached a tipping point.
More, including The Challenge of Relicensing, at Dolphin-EMU...

Have any LQ members gone through a project relicensing?

--jeremy
 
Old 06-03-2015, 04:32 PM   #2
dugan
LQ Guru
 
Registered: Nov 2003
Location: Canada
Distribution: distro hopper
Posts: 11,193

Rep: Reputation: 5307Reputation: 5307Reputation: 5307Reputation: 5307Reputation: 5307Reputation: 5307Reputation: 5307Reputation: 5307Reputation: 5307Reputation: 5307Reputation: 5307
Isn't MAME also currently going through a relicensing?
 
Old 06-04-2015, 09:44 AM   #3
jeremy
root
 
Registered: Jun 2000
Distribution: Debian, Red Hat, Slackware, Fedora, Ubuntu
Posts: 13,597

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 4080Reputation: 4080Reputation: 4080Reputation: 4080Reputation: 4080Reputation: 4080Reputation: 4080Reputation: 4080Reputation: 4080Reputation: 4080Reputation: 4080
MAME has long been freely available, but it's never been completely Libre. Instead, it's been available under a modified BSD license that prohibits commercial use of the code, among other things. They are now moving to a true Open Source license.

https://twitter.com/mamedev_org/stat...61074889351168

--jeremy
 
Old 06-15-2015, 06:12 PM   #4
trevorparsons
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Aug 2006
Posts: 5
Blog Entries: 15

Rep: Reputation: 0
Just in case anyone else is confused, this thread is about Dolphin the emulator for Nintendo video game consoles (of which I hadn't heard until now), not Dolphin the excellent KDE file browser (which I use daily).

I got quite excited at the idea of the latter being built for Android!
 
  


Reply


Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off



Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
LXer: Look, no client! Not quite: the long road to a webbified Vim LXer Syndicated Linux News 0 08-20-2014 06:12 PM
LXer: Microsoft Has a Long Road to Mobile Marketshare Respectability LXer Syndicated Linux News 0 08-31-2012 12:20 AM
The long road of linux vidrazor Linux - General 5 07-03-2011 11:51 AM
Rant of a self inflicted long road... mipia General 1 08-24-2008 09:31 AM
LXer: The Road to KDE 4: Dolphin and Konqueror LXer Syndicated Linux News 0 03-02-2007 09:01 AM

LinuxQuestions.org > Forums > Linux Forums > Linux - News

All times are GMT -5. The time now is 11:22 PM.

Main Menu
Advertisement
My LQ
Write for LQ
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute content, let us know.
Main Menu
Syndicate
RSS1  Latest Threads
RSS1  LQ News
Twitter: @linuxquestions
Open Source Consulting | Domain Registration