(Artemis) Open source considerations

[misfire]

Well, as Project Artemis is going to be open source, there are many considerations we have to make. Obviously, throwing together code snippets from various sources is not going to work (even with a version control system). The whole project must be maintained in an efficient way.

I'm not an expert in managing open source projects. Most of the things I know about it have their origin in the Linux kernel. If somebody has got experience on the subject, feel free to give your comments here.

The first thing I'd like to talk about is licensing. Which free software license are we going to use for Artemis? I think this is a good question to start with.

[Lazy Bastard]

Yes, we need to set up a SVN repository, on the double

I think AFL would be a good route, and would follow suit of most of the other PS2 homebrew projects.

[misfire]

I'm not sure if we should use AFL as it allows our software to be made proprietary. I'd prefer a strong copyleft license like the GPL. The final decison surely depends on the license terms of other source code we gonna use. (We should create a list.)

Besides the license, the version control system we gonna use is one of the other points we have to discuss. I'm in favor of Mercurial with its decentralized system. I'm using it at work and I really like it.

Have a read: Mercurial compared with other tools

[Lazy Bastard]

Can we make parts of the project source fall under one license, and other parts fall under other licenses? For example, can we allow our original source to fall under GPL, but ensure snippets of source from others' work fall under their appropriate licenses? This composite approach might work well...

Mercurial at least purports to be superior, and makes some decent arguments. Taking a look, it appears to be a decent system: http://www.formulacompiler.org/hg/

We'll take a look at ease of installation on our server.

[misfire]

It is possible as long as the licenses are compatible.

More information can be found here:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq....atIsCompatible
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html

[misfire]

You're right, most of the other homebrew projects that are important to us are covered by the AFL 2.0 (ps2sdk, ps2link, usb_mass, etc.).

The exception is ps2smap which is licensed under the GPL. The AFL is incompatible with the GNU GPL, but there's also a packet driver replacement covered by the AFL: http://forums.ps2dev.org/viewtopic.php?p=47173

Although, I'm not sure if it matters at all as ps2smap is an "external module" and I don't know how this affects the license of the calling software. Does anybody know?

[Lazy Bastard]

As long as we use ps2smap as an external module, and do not include the source to ps2smap in our project, I don't think it will be a problem.

[misfire]

So you vote for AFL, despite the fact that it allows Artemis (or parts of it) to be made proprietary?

[Lazy Bastard]

If most of the important projects to us are already AFL, wouldn't that be the best choice? Can we use GPL if we include parts of these other projects? Of course I'd like to force all parts of Artemis to stay free and open source/open use...

(heh, nice touch @ "Modern Robin Hood:"; I believe I mentioned that analogy at some point)

[misfire]

GPL isn't compatible with AFL, see above. I'm not sure if we could apply the GPL to Artemis when it is based on AFL-licensed code. Maybe it's possible to make a distinction between both licenses and the corresponding source code parts?

This is getting really complicated. Looks like we need a lawyer.

(And yes, I've got that analogy from you. )

[Lazy Bastard]

@ GPL-AFL incompatibility: Right, I didn't think so.

I do think there must be a way to keep the pieces of our source separate, and allow them to fall under different licenses. I'll look into it later, if no one else does.

[misfire]

The free software ecosystem and its denizens

[Lazy Bastard]

Reading through this book (pointed out to me by Parasyte): http://www.producingoss.com/en/producingoss.html

Has reminded me that we really need to nail down how we're going to handle licensing.

So, to reiterate what we've got so far:

* PS2SDK and most other homebrew projects in the PS2 dev community are AFL. This means that other groups could use pieces of our source to make proprietary applications.

* PS2SMAP is GPL, which isn't compatible with AFL. If we go the AFL route (which we'll likely have to), we need to find out if we can use PS2SMAP, it being an external module. If not, we may have to use a replacement of some sort, or hack up our own.

* A possible option would be separating the pieces of our project into their own respective license groups. This is probably not legal, but it's worth looking into as the benefits would be great.

It would be nice if we had a lawyer that specialized in software licenses, but I suppose we're going to have to dig through some legal vernacular ourselves. I'll look around tomorrow, if I remember and have time.

[Dastan]

Jimmikaelkael, one of the guys resposible with Free McBoot might know some things about license. You can find him at PSX-Scene and I had a disscusion about some legal stuff with JNABK, the SKS Apps' admin, so he knows some things too.

[Lazy Bastard]

Yeah. Actually, I think the PS2Dev.org guys are probably a really good source of info, particularly for this project. After that, I'll probably try some of the larger forums for open source software.