On 4/24/05, Thursday <nospam / nospam.nospam.nospam.nospam.org> wrote:

<snip>

> 
> I don't think this kind of mistake accurately portrays the cooperative
> and honest spirit of the ruby community.  In addition to correcting the
> page, perhaps the kind folks at rubyforge would think of something nice
> they can do for wxruby and wxWidgets projects to make up for this unjust
> portrayal.  

They already do more than most for almost everybody...

> Like mentioning licensing terms of each (FOX having the most
> unfriendly toward closed-source commercial projects, FLTK being less
> restrictive, and wxWidgets having the least restrictive license in this
> regard).
> 
> DISCLAIMER: by FOX, I mean FOX TOOLKIT, not the cable news channel.
> 
> 

Along the lines of being careful about the 'spin' placed on statements
- your comments, as well as any other 'critical looks at licenses',
should link to the pages from the respective authors explaining their
license, since _some_ consider the FOX and FXRuby licenses to be very
friendly toward closed-source commercial projects. Also stating that
FLTK is less restrictive than FOX is a bit misleading since they are
both LGPL and both have an extra clause to allow for static relinking.
Yes, FLTK allows static linking of modified copies, where FOX does not
- my point being that some wouldn't find that restrictive. Everyone
needs to develop their own opinion (business or personal) about what
toolkit is best for their situation.

In the end I'd encourage anyone interested to simply go to the source
for each toolkit and make up your own mind...

FOX license:
http://www.fox-toolkit.org/license.html

wxWidgets license:
http://www.wxwidgets.org/newlicen.htm

FLTK FAQ entry about license:
http://www.fltk.org/articles.php?L364+I0+TFAQ+P1+Q

-Rich