Verily I say unto thee, that Miguel de Icaza spake thusly:
>> I don't agree with this EULA, therefore I can't install this
>> software.
>>
>> To resolve this problem, I downloaded the sources for Moonlight:
>>
>> svn co svn://anonsvn.mono-project.com/source/trunk/moon
>
> You should have downloaded the tarball release, which is our official
> release.
Well I was following the only available links to the source on that page
(even now, I'm having difficulty locating the release tarball).
Ah, I see the problem. For some strange reason that page uses Javascript
to generate the URL, instead of using a simple HTML tag, and since I use
the NoScript plugin for Firefox, it blocked that Javascript and thus the
link.
Having now downloaded the elusive tarball, I tried to compile the source
therein, but encountered yet /another/ error:
utils.h:60: error: ‘ssize_t’ does not name a type
And the build fails.
So now I'm right back where I started.
> Only developers use SVN checkouts
Yes, I did think it was strange that the only available link was to SVN.
> If you want plain instructions on building Moonlight with FFMPEG, you
> can read the RPM spec files that exist for moonlight, there are
> plenty of them.
I didn't see anything relevant on that site.
A quick Google for "Moonlight RPM spec" produces this:
http://dries.ulyssis.org/apt/packages/moonlight/info.html
But that just turns out to be "a free software modeller and renderer for
3D scenes".
I could spend the rest of my evening hunting for this spec file but I've
better things to do, and I'm not sure it would actually resolve this bug
anyway, unless there's some patch required to make Moonlight work (under
Fedora). If you're aware of such a patch, perhaps you could just tell me
about it, and save me some time.
>> Why isn't Moonlight licensed under GPLv3?
>
> Because whoever writes the software gets to choose the license they
> use.
>
> I have not researched the GPL3 in depth myself
Really?
You must be the only Free Software developer on earth who hasn't, then.
It's not exactly the Encyclopaedia Britannica. It's a fairly short, and
quite unambiguous license, set out in clear and concise terms. It's has
also been available for nearly two years, and even before that in draft
form.
Why don't you read it now, it should only take you a couple of minutes:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
So what exactly are your concerns and questions about this license?
> so before I commit to it, I need to spend time learning it, and
> understanding what that means for the software I write. I know that
> Linus does not like it, and for now his opinion on the license
> weights on my decision.
So you've chosen to ignore something you don't yet understand, because
someone else holds a negative opinion of it.
Isn't that rather narrow-minded?
Or is there something else you're not telling me?
>> This seems to preclude distributing Moonlight on a LiveCD or other
>> immutable medium, which seems like a rather odd restriction.
>> Perhaps you could explain.
>
> You can upgrade Moonlight if you obtain it from a LiveCD.
That's an evasive and misleading response, since obtaining Moonlight via
the medium is not the issue, it's the ability to upgrade the distributed
software /in place/, which on an immutable medium, like a LiveCD distro,
is not possible, and thus contravenes this "anti-embedded" clause you've
added to the (otherwise) GPL license for Moonlight.
Now certainly there is the possibility that a LiveCD distro might use an
overlay using unionfs, to mitigate the immutability of the medium by use
of a persistent file on a HDD, but /equally/ there is also the perfectly
reasonable possibility that it won't ... and shouldn't /have/ to just to
satisfy Moonlight's unreasonable conditions.
Let's take another look at this clause:
[quote]
We consider non-LGPL use instances where you use this on an
embedded system where the end user is not able to upgrade the
Moonlight installation or distribution that is part of your
product
[/quote]
A LiveCD is a /product/ which is not able to be upgraded in place, which
includes any packages on that product, like Moonlight.
Your misleading response is only true if the user /installs/ that distro
onto a re-writeable media /from/ the LiveCD (and for this purpose, using
a persistent overlay is tantamount to a form of "install").
But what if the system lacks a HDD or any other form of writeable media,
or even the means to connect any, but instead comes with a Linux LiveCD,
for security or whatever other purpose?
It seems such systems are prohibited from distributing Moonlight.
Why?
And again, mainly for the benefit of those who lack either the capacity
or patience to try to build software from sources, I ask you to give me
some idea of when a pre-compiled binary of Moonlight, linked to ffmpeg,
will become available?
I suppose I should /also/ ask, will such a release violate Moonlight's
license, or be subjugated by the hidden pitfalls of any supplemental
restrictions imposed by either Novell or Microsoft?
--
K.
http://slated.org
.----
| "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It
| is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." ~ William
| Pitt the Younger
`----
Fedora release 8 (Werewolf) on sky, running kernel 2.6.25.11-60.fc8
06:07:34 up 80 days, 13:50, 4 users, load average: 0.31, 0.38, 0.44
|
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