Lumina Desktop 0.9 Adds Window Compositing Support, New Text Editor

[zeealpal]

then explain why someone would worry about GPL for what is not a general toolkit library but a set of applications - as binaries the GPL boundary stops there and doesn't spread further (as opposed to LGPL).......... i can't help but think it's another one of these people. and so i thought they might be surprised that their *GPL-free system is not so *GPL-free if they need Qt.

as rhavenn had stated, LGPL as compared to GPL is a totally different beast.

If QT was licensed GPL I wouldn't be able to link software I've written to any of the QT libraries and use any of the functionality provided without also releasing the source code of my software, which I may not want to do for various reasons (selling my software, don't feel like sharing etc...)

However, being LGPL licensed, I can link my software I've written to QT, and sell/distribute it without having to release the source code of my application to everyone. I have more freedom to use software licensed as LGPL with my own code than I do with the GPL (still obeying the limitations of each license)

P.s. Please correct me if incorrect and I'll amend

[bison]

Yeah, but does it run on Linux?

yes

// padding this out so the reply is long enough to post...

[ermo]

I disagree with your conclusion. The posted screenshot doesn't show the desktop really well. It mainly shows the icon/theming used on the screenshot app. It also seems to be totally unrelated to the text in that post (talking about licensing).

Also, even if the theming for Lumina is unpolished and/or limited in choice right now, that's probably a low priority for devs and current users.

IIRC (and I could be misremembering!), the user in question feels strongly about not duplicating effort in the FLOSS space and not licensing things under non-copyleft licenses.

So IF I'm not misremembering, THEN it stands to reason that his comment on the lumina desktop not being licensed under the "Evil" GPL (again, IIRC, the user in question does not actually think the GPL is evil) was a sarcastic comment essentially asking "why on earth would anyone waste their precious time on this clunky-looking, BSD-licensed, duplication-of-effort DE?!".

But as I said, there's a chance that I am misremembering, which would probably render my conclusion wrong.

[raster]

as rhavenn had stated, LGPL as compared to GPL is a totally different beast.

If QT was licensed GPL I wouldn't be able to link software I've written to any of the QT libraries and use any of the functionality provided without also releasing the source code of my software, which I may not want to do for various reasons (selling my software, don't feel like sharing etc...)

However, being LGPL licensed, I can link my software I've written to QT, and sell/distribute it without having to release the source code of my application to everyone. I have more freedom to use software licensed as LGPL with my own code than I do with the GPL (still obeying the limitations of each license)

P.s. Please correct me if incorrect and I'll amend

I fully know what Qt's licenses are and am 100% aware of LGPL vs GPL. i've been doing this a long time. The original comment was basically "thank god lumina is not GPL - it's evil". But lumina is (essentially) not a library (see previous reply). It's binaries (with a .so they share but it's not like Qt or GTK+ or EFL). As such since the purpose is not for people to link against it but to use it as a toolset. GPL already ends at the boundary of it's binaries - like LGPL ends at the boundary of the .so.

So looking at the comment it looks like the original post just thinks anything *GPL (LGPL, GPL etc.) is evil because there is no logic to going on about GPL for lumina as it's not infectious anyway. The only reason to go on about GPL would be if you are one of the "GPL, LGPL - GNU stuff is evil" people in this case. Then that person might be surprised if they found out lumina depends on Qt and Qt is LGPL (or GPL - see v5.7 - GPL2 I think or LGPL3 or commercial paid for licenses).

[DanL]

Yes, but why talk about licensing at all (even sarcastically)? It's not one of Lumina's goals to rewrite existing GPL project(s) using BSD code. Instead, they are writing a DE to fill the space left by LXDE.

[beast]

iXsystems wrote their own DE which uses FreeBSD features, was there a support beyond it compiles under FreeBSD in LXDE?

[drSeehas]

... they are writing a DE to fill the space left by LXDE.

Why not just use LXQt instead?

https://wiki.freebsd.org/LXQt

[bison]

Why not just use LXQt instead?
https://wiki.freebsd.org/LXQt

Speak of, LXQt development has been in slow motion for the past year. I don't know if this is due to time constraints, or flagging interest, or something else, but there is a definite loss of momentum.

[nasyt]

then explain why someone would worry about GPL for what is not a general toolkit library but a set of applications - as binaries the GPL boundary stops there and doesn't spread further (as opposed to LGPL). if lumina were a library/toolkit ... then it might make sense. well ok to be pedantically correct - lumina does ship with a shared library, but it very much looks like it's intended just to share code between it's own tools. it can be used outside but searching around i can't seem to find anything that does outside of lumina itself). it's really just a small suite of qt based tools (fm, screenshotter, config tool, search tool, ...), so i was reading into GPL, it meaning *GPL (GPL, LGPL, etc.) as it didn't make a lot of sense otherwise. i have spoken with enough people who think *GPL is evil and BSD license is so much better and they want to keep a *GPL free system because of this belief etc. and the moment someone says "GPL is evil" for a project that is really a set of binaries, i can't help but think it's another one of these people. and so i thought they might be surprised that their *GPL-free system is not so *GPL-free if they need Qt.

I agree. QT is a pretty bad solution here.

They should change their beliefs I think. They're stupid. The bsd license is probably the most idiotic one. It supports competition and proprietary licenses, but doesn't protect the code in any way. It's a one way street.

"It supports competition" - since when it that bad?

Every time in run into GPL code, the first thing I do is to reimplement it from scratch. Then I put my rewrite under the MIT license or Apache license.

I believe, the GPL is an obstacle, and commercial software has to work around it in very weird ways.

[Awesomeness]

I disagree with your conclusion. The posted screenshot doesn't show the desktop really well. It mainly shows the icon/theming used on the screenshot app. It also seems to be totally unrelated to the text in that post (talking about licensing).

Also, even if the theming for Lumina is unpolished and/or limited in choice right now, that's probably a low priority for devs and current users.

Use your eyes. It's obvious that I was pointing out to the fact that Lumia sacrifices usability for licensing reasons. Anyone fucking up usability of something simple as a screenshot app should not touch GUI applications.

Lumia's sole existence revolves around the fact that it's BSD-licensed. LXQt (as desktop) and KDE (for applications) already do pretty much the same with better usability.

Speak of, LXQt development has been in slow motion for the past year. I don't know if this is due to time constraints, or flagging interest, or something else, but there is a definite loss of momentum.

No, LXQt is doing just fine. They had a streak of releasing several new version in relatively short order but looking at their Github repos, the commit count seems fine.