Re: Module proposal: Empathy for GNOME 2.24

[Sven Herzberg <herzi gnome-de org>]

Am Mittwoch, den 26.03.2008, 18:34 +0100 schrieb Xavier Claessens:
> Le mercredi 26 mars 2008 à 18:24 +0100, Sven Herzberg a écrit :
> > Am Mittwoch, den 26.03.2008, 18:15 +0100 schrieb Xavier Claessens:
> > > Le mercredi 26 mars 2008 à 18:05 +0100, Patryk Zawadzki a écrit :
> > > > On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 5:56 PM, Travis Watkins <amaranth ubuntu com> wrote:
> > > > > On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 5:25 AM, Martyn Russell <martyn imendio com> wrote:
> > > > >  >  Both libempathy and libempathy-gtk use a lot of GPL code from Gossip and
> > > > >  >  some of the files are not correctly attributed with the authors too I
> > > > >  >  noticed.
> > > > >  >
> > > > >  >  So it is a -1 for that reason for me.
> > > > >  In that case -1 from me as well. If it's not LGPL I can't use it and I
> > > > >  suspect others will have the same problem. GPL for a library you want
> > > > >  everyone to use doesn't make much sense.
> > > > 
> > > > Try to focus on the project, not on technical (legal) problems
> > > > involved in making it part of GNOME. It's their job to relicense
> > > > properly before becoming a part of desktop. If they fail then I
> > > > believe all of us will be -1.
> > > 
> > > It's not required to be LGPL to enter the desktop, it's only to enter
> > > the plateform. I'm not proposing libempathy(-gtk) to the plateform and
> > > that won't happen soon.
> > 
> > Then, I actually don't see _any_ point in proposing a library for GNOME.
> > Proposing a library to me means that you have something being used by
> > many components and not only desktop-ones. In the past we've been trying
> > hard to keep all our components available for anyone, not just
> > GPL-users; we shouldn't drop that just to get empathy into the desktop.
> 
> We have libwnck for example. And GNOME don't accept anything in the
> plateform if it's not yet for at least one cycle in the desktop IIRC.

libwnck is a completely different issue; it's a special-purpose library
with really few use-aces (most of the covered by the panel applets
already).

If you want libempathy to be a "rich set of reusable instant
messaging widgets" (quoting your original proposal), you want it in the
platform, so getting it into the desktop first will only work if you
have a concrete outline on how to get it into the platform later.
Accepting this as a desktop-only proposal doesn't seem right for
something with your outlined goals. Desktop-first, platform-later would
be something we could agree on, but then you already said that you don't
have any plans for that.

Regards,
  Sven