Alternatives to GPL-2.0 license?

[peterbrittain]

First off, I just wanted to say that I love that you've spent the time to port FIGlet to Python. This is a great project and I want to say thank you for creating it. But that's not why I've raised this issue... :-)

It turns out that many of your dependent projects/packages (https://github.com/pwaller/pyfiglet/network/dependents) are using pyfiglet, but are not redistributing under the terms of the GPL-2.0 license that you are using. My own package (https://github.com/peterbrittain/asciimatics) appears to have fallen foul of this.

I really want to continue to deploy my package under the terms of the Apache-2.0 license, which as I understand it means I have to follow one of the following options:

1. Remove/replace the use of your package
2. Convert all direct use of pyfiglet (via import) into separate process calls (via your command-line script).
3. Agree with you (as the copyright holders) a separate license for my project.
4. Persuade you to change your standard license to something that allows for this use case - e.g. LGPL-3.0.

Given how many other projects depend on this one (and are actually breaking the terms as I now understand them), I'd like to try to do the right thing here and explore options 3 and 4 with you before just diving into options 1 or 2.

So... Would you be willing to consider some other form of licensing like LGPL?

[pwaller]

I would have no problem personally with changing the license, but I am A) not the only author B) not the original author C) only a maintainer.

Unfortunately I have no idea how to achieve a relicensing, and since this is a spare time project, it's not something I'm able to devote any resources to.

If everyone who had contributed could be A) contacted and B) agree to the change, then I would change it in a heartbeat. I suspect this is not simple to do.

Aside from that, if someone else did the legwork and somehow demonstrated that it was an appropriate thing to do somehow without the above success, then sure. I don't have access to a lawyer who could tell me whether what we were doing was sound.

Would you be willing to do such legwork? Can you discover anyone or any forum with the requisite knowledge and experience which can advise?

If the answer is "Yes", then I'll reopen the issue - but if no activity occurs in a number of months I'll close the issue again after that. Hope that makes sense.

[peterbrittain]

As I understand it, you don't need a lawyer to do this. This is a pretty common thing with open source and so there are precedents out there. For example, general principles are covered here: https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/33/how-can-a-project-be-relicensed

However, that doesn't change the fact that it would need approval of all previous contributors and a good reason to change. Finding contributors isn't hard - just look at the list in github plus anyone you're aware of before you set up this project.

Getting the approval may be more difficult... As you can see in the referenced article, it took a year to re-license Eclipse. Others wish to do it, but clearly find it hard and so it drags on for years. For example: urwid/urwid#135

As for the good reason? This is an pretty much a religious thing... If your contributors believe in copyleft, there's little I can do to persuade them otherwise. On the other hand, if they want to make it easy for anyone to use this project without major concerns, a more permissive license (especially MIT or Apache-2.0) would help.

Maybe a simple poll to all contributors through github notifications (like the example used for urwid) would settle this quickly?

[pwaller]

The only contributor I'm aware of who isn't on GitHub is the original author, Christopher Jones, who is mentioned in the readme. You're welcome to try and reach out (please CC me, email in my github profile) and see if he and the other 12 authors agree.

[peterbrittain]

OK - let's test the water for MIT...

Dear Contributor, the pyfiglet project is trying to switch from the GPL-2.0 to the MIT license. This is proposed in order to reduce concerns about using this library with other projects (both commercial and more permissive open source projects). For some examples of the confusion and difficulties, see the projects linked earler in this issue.

Please acknowledge this message with a comment here and let us know whether you agree 👍 or disagree 👎 to relicense your project contribution under said license.

• Christopher Jones
• @pwaller
• @grandemk
• @minchinweb
• @livibetter
• @irskep
• @llimllib
• @pmlandwehr
• @mnunezdm
• @Alexey-T
• @asakasinsky
• @stefanor
• @marlboromoo

Many thanks for your time and consideration.

[llimllib]

👍

[llimllib]

Oof, also realized I’m violating your license as well 😣

[irskep]

👍🏻

[grandemk]

+1

[peterbrittain]

@cjones Are you the original author for this project? If so, could you also please add your vote?

[mnunezdm]

👍

[minchinweb]

👍

[livibetter]

👍