Hello,
I realized that Cholmes has now left town until April 28, and
although he has been handling the correspondence with the Ext folks,
I want to make sure we circle back with an update.
When we reached out to Ext JS, we expressed TOPP's concerns in
detail-- particularly about how this might significantly impact our
Geo team's development path. As you may know, an upcoming project
planned to create best of breed widgets for mapping (styling layers,
viewing and adding data, searching, turning layers on and off) built
on or working with OpenLayers and Ext.js. Without clarity around the
future of Ext.js licensing, it would not be prudent to proceed as
planned.
Within a few hours, we received this reply from their licensing team:
Hi Chris,
Thank you for your candid email. I can assure you that we want
to work with the open source community. In fact, we have been in
search of a current OSI approved license that will meet our needs. I
want to put your concerns at ease. In the coming weeks, Ext will be
more open. Please feel free to reach out and give me a call on my
cell: XXX-XXX-XXXX. We are definitely interested in your project's
success, and feel you are doing great work.
Warm regards,
Abraham Elias
Chris was able to speak with Abe directly, and learned that a primary
factor in their licensing matter was a concern about the GPL's
applicability to javascript. In their view, the GPL seemed to assume
it was being applied to code written in a compiled language, even
under the updated GPL 3. This belief prompted their adoption of the
Ext license that put field-of-use restrictions on top of the vanilla
LGPL, with the apparent objective being to grant the right to use
Ext.js in "commercial" applications but not in libraries or toolkits:
Ext.js could be consumed, but not subsumed.
Chris connected Abe with David Turner and asked David if he could
shed more light on the GPL's applicability to javascript. David was
kind enough to clarify that the GPL was indeed considered applicable
to javascript by himself and others at FSF, and generously offered
both his own time and to connect them to folks at FSF to help satisfy
any lingering questions they may have. Abe replied with his thanks
and a promise to keep us posted on any new developments. Abe sent
this reply on April 11 (last friday), and I am not aware of any
correspondence with him this week. I did just check, though, and as
of today (April 18) the Ext license still stands on their website.
These are not utterly simple matters, though, and so I'd like to give
Abe some time for him and his team to look into things and find
answers that could lay their concerns to rest. However, I want to be
clear that I am not interested in asking you all to wait indefinitely
for some resolution. I have sent Abe an email today to request that,
with Chris traveling for the next few weeks, he also please include
me on any email updates.
I will pass news on as I receive it, and if we do not hear from him
within 2 weeks from today (May 2), we will have to start discussing
our options.
Let me know if you have any questions.
-JA
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