I'm curious, does the dynamic nature of JavaScript make browser-based GPL Javascript essentially LGPL? Any lawyers or FSF advocates out there know?

'A compilation of a covered work with other separate and independent works, which are not by their nature extensions of the covered work, and which are not combined with it such as to form a larger program, in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, is called an "aggregate" if the compilation and its resulting copyright are not used to limit the access or legal rights of the compilation's users beyond what the individual works permit. Inclusion of a covered work in an aggregate does not cause this License to apply to the other parts of the aggregate.'

In other words, your MIT library is an independent work and does not limit the rights imparted by the other pieces (namely, the GPL pieces). This is somewhat important since you (presumably) don't own the copyright to that MIT work and so your options for relicensing it are limited.

Meanwhile, your code is a direct, derivative work of the GPL code and at a minimum, must be made available under the GPL. You can additionally release under other licenses, provided that those licenses do not conflict with the GPL. A "public domain" non-license might work. And again, you must always offer a GPL option.

I don't know how the AGPL applies here. I would guess that it's pretty much the same except you acquire those above GPL rights just by consuming the output of the code (e.g. visiting the webpage).

Using Concord on your site? Offer a link to the source. Modify it to work better with a framework? Offer that modification too. Build an entire product off of it? Well, be prepared to release the source to that product under GPL as well. If you don't like those terms, feel free to start from scratch and not freeload off the original authors who were kind enough to share source with you in the first place.

I don't understand how people can pay good money for things like game engines, then turn around and think that OSS doesn't have a price too, or get upset when they are asked to pay it. You just end up paying back to the community instead of into a company's coffers.

I also think that a license which is too complicated for anyone to actually understand is simply too flawed to serve it's purpose, which was the original point of my post. This is completely separate from people not giving back to open source.

The GPL is less suitable for this because means that all of your code for the page(s) using Concord have to be GPL-compatible. Presumably, this includes Urchin.

GPL seems like overkill given your goal. It will be limited to a niche of either fully open source public applications or completely private/internal applications.

However, if you incorporate Concord into a product you sell, then you either need to provide the source per the provisions of the GPL, or else negotiate a different license from Winer.

Basically, I want people to know that when they use binary-only modules, it's THEIR problem. I want people to know that in their bones, and I want it shouted out from the rooftops. I want people to wake up in a cold sweat every once in a while if they use binary-only modules. -- Linus Torvalds

As a Linux user (and previous developer) I can only commend these positions. I don't care about hardware companies' "intellectual property", all I want is to pay for hardware and have good drivers that don't wreak havoc with my system.

[1] http://www.law.washington.edu/casrip/license/

It's not practical and it's not free. That's why I'd never consider releasing software under it.

I will agree that it is complicated but that's a result of years of companies abusing loopholes and the nature of trying to cover every conceivable scenario. It's an old codebase but still the best we have.

Practicality is never the consideration of an idealist and the GPL is definitely the product of an idealist. RMS has often appeared like a crazy old man but as time passes, he seems to be proven right more often than wrong. A consequence of idealism and the march of progress, maybe.

You're of course well within your rights to choose a different way but your characterization of the GPL not being about freedom is a bit off the mark.

It's a document that gives and preserves rights of the end user, which include the right to the source code and the right to modify and distribute.

How could it possibly 'take away' rights? Any rights not in the licence didn't exist in the first place and thus can't be 'taken away'.

A licence is a set of conditions which a code author/owner sets for using his/her code, any 'rights' you have to their code is that of the conditions they set.

If a developer chooses GPL for their code then those are the rights to which you can use their code, no rights have been 'taken away from you' at all, it's not your code.

And it's certainly practical, which I'm certain is the reason that it's the most used open source licence.

One particular aspect which makes it practical from a developer standpoint is that if they release their code under GPL they have the right to source code modifications made to their code as end users of such modifications.

There is no BEST licence, the licence profileration is a direct consequence of our different needs and values.

Sure, anything can be confusing. A door nob is surely confusing to some people, especially if they never seen one before. But a door nob is not inherently confusing, and intellectually honest people would not describe it as such.

Let me ask, what is confusing about a license that say:

  You can and may do anything with this code, so long you allow others to do the same,
  and to any modified version you might create.

To quote the license:

  To protect your rights, we need to prevent others from denying you these rights or
  asking you to surrender the rights. Therefore, you have certain responsibilities if
  you distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it: responsibilities to
  respect the freedom of others.

If someone had specific questions about how she could build on this, surely she would just reach out to Dave and have a conversation?

That has been the interpretation of the guys distributing extjs.

From the Git page: An outliner is a text editor that organizes information in a hierarchy, allowing users to control the level of detail and to reorganize according to structure. Your notes can have full detail, yet be organized so a casual reader can get a quick overview. Outlining is a great way for teams to organize work.

What about hierarchies of objects that aren't strings? (I'd like to organize them too).

What about hierarchies that aren't a strict tree? (I can't really do my genealogy on this).

P.S. I like what Dave does with outliners but I'm not sure I'd apply them everywhere he does.

At least by limiting it to text and stuff that looks a lot like text, you can produce a real application that does real things of real value. It may not be suitable for everything, but your thing that is suitable for "everything" is likely come out being suitable for nothing in practice.

Maybe the problem just can't be simplified further? And as an aside, I wasn't trying to disparage Dave Winer's implementation of tree editing at all.

I think an outliner is a great way to explore a fully connected directed graph with sequenced edges; just don't hit "Expand everything" when the graph contains a cycle. Leo http://leoeditor.com/ expends a lot of effort to avoid cycles, which shows up in slow execution when adding edges ("cloning", in its terminology) to a node reaching a significant subgraph.

If the graph can contain cycles, a recursive expander needs to contain cycle recognition and terminate after a finite number of trips through the cycle (probably one).

On the other hand, when dealing with trees (aka outlines) it is almost always assumed that there is a significant order - a sequencing - on the edges between parent and child, and that it means something if you change the order of the children (outline subheads).

I'm interested in more general (directed) graphs that nonetheless have a sequence - an order - on the edges, and where operations on that sequence are explored, in addition to the more usually examined addition and removal of edges. Until holographic displays are cheap (and maybe even after) I think trees, aka outlines, are a great visualization technique for such graphs - just take precautions with "Expand All" when the edges contain ((A,A)) or ((A,B), (B,A)) or any other length cycle. Or, as an outline

    This is heading A
        This is heading A
            ....
    This is heading B
        This is heading A
            This is heading A
                ....
            This is heading B
                This is heading A
                    This is heading A
                        ....

I like trees too. I think that as long as computer memory is linear, our serializations are going to be linear, so even when we get holographic displays, our primary abstractions should be linearly serializable (so we don't get lost in leaky abstractions), which means trees. A graph structure built on that would have to be some form of "magic" layered on top, based on links embedded in the tree. Among other possibilities, you can make the "edges" be little independent trees that link to the "nodes".

Also, if I got it right, an outliner is a note taking application? The best note-taking application I know of is, by far, org-mode in Emacs.

Urf, budgeting the time for this may be a challenge, but odds are good that this can be dropped into a XUL shell to obtain a traditional "local" filesystem outliner with only a few hundred lines more of grease. I'll have to see what I can do. (I've done it once before for something else.)

You can click through to github, to be told that it's what their Fargo tool is based on, and from there you can click through to that... to be told that you have to link it to your dropbox account before you can even try it.

https://github.com/scripting/concord/blob/master/README.md

It will just have to be something I write myself, I guess.

here is the source http://github.com/hhuuggoo/efficiently

and the demo: https://eff.iciently.com/docview/r/4ed70c031a7ba32edb000002/

But this one is an app, not a plugin, so it might be less useful to some.

If you look in the opml folder of the repo you'll find the source files for all the js and css files.

First, the brace and indentation style is extremely unusual and hard to follow. I have never seen this style used in another curly-brace-language project anywhere.

I realize that brace and indentation is a very personal preference, but I've had no trouble following a variety of styles - until this one. Here's an example:

  if(c.op.inTextMode()){
      c.op.focusCursor();
      c.editor.restoreSelection();
      }else{
          c.pasteBinFocus();
          }

How would you follow this style if there is a chain of else-if's? I don't see any examples in the code, but it seems it would have to look like this to be consistent:

  if(a){
      b();
      }else if(c){
          d();
          }else if(e){
              f();
              }else{
                  g();
                  }

  this.callbacks = function(callbacks) {
      if(callbacks) {
          this.root.data("callbacks", callbacks);
          return callbacks;
      } else {
          if(this.root.data("callbacks")) {
              return this.root.data("callbacks");
              } else {
                  return {};
                  }
          }
      };

The function could be much simpler too:

  this.callbacks = function( callbacks ) {
      return callbacks ?
          this.root.data( "callbacks", callbacks ) :
          this.root.data( "callbacks" ) || {};
  };

One last point that is just a matter of taste, but I think the code would benefit quite a bit if it followed the popular jQuery convention of using a $ prefix on variables that contain jQuery objects.

I love outliners, and I'd really like to contribute to this project, but the code is so strangely formatted that I'd have a really hard time with it. I wonder if the authors would consider adopting a more conventional coding style, or if they just like it the way it is?

I am a total bugger about formatting code.

The outliner approach is pretty good but not perfect.

If-then-else is the sore thumb, for sure.

Along with try-catch.

But overall, outliners are a huge win for writing code.

Let's be hardasses about this stuff, but also understanding.

I think your approach is perfect.