Hi,
You guys done excellent job.
i am using Edgeline beta version. Its a nice tool to design screens and export code in C and Python.
When will Edgeline Production application release with all screen sizes and all widgets ?
and what is the price for Production application to use all functionalities and widgets?
Thank You.
Hi,
Thank you! 
The screen size limitation will be removed in the next minor release but widgets will be added gradually.
The pricing plan will look like this:
There are some variables that affect the final release date so I can’t say an exact date now.
What about a licensing scheme based on project purpose?
For instance:
• Open-source: Free with no limitations for open source projects (like Travis-CI)
• Freelancer/Startups: For solo developers or small teams for free with limitations or with no limitations for a few dollars.
• Enteprise: Targeted to powerful industries like infotainment system design, wearables and such, more features for a more aggresive pricing. (You expect the enteprise to pay for a per-developer license)
Something like Qt, altough Qt is dual-licensed as (L)GPL or Commercial:
I was also thinking about dual licensing LVGL but I’m afraid a lot of people (even contributors) would leave LVGL.
While dual licensing is generally a combination of a commercial license with a strong-copyleft one like (in order of convenience for business users) LGPL, GPL or AGPL… An option could be MPL (Mozilla Public License), is like a LGPL but at a file level. So it can still be integrated by adding the source to the project, and you only require to share your modifications to LVGL itself (if any).
So open-source projects and freelancers would not have a problem in sharing their improvements to LVGL, enteprise users can use it freely “as is”, but someone who does modify LVGL to provide a “cutting-edge” technology will be interested in the commercial license.
This of course is just my opinion.
Exactly that was what I was also thinking about. I’ve done some research and it seems licence changing with many contributors is legally very complicated.
Here is a nice article about the subject:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/Licensing-HOWTO.html
I think it would be possible, specially considering who are the biggest contributors to the project (like you being the first in the list ), some say that minor contributors do not have the same privileges at decision-making, and what matters most is who is the main copyright holder.
The idea would be to bring an equilibrum to business interests and open-source. Because let’s be honest sometimes people only likes to take the fruit from the tree and never water it, while it is a good cause to give freely, there comes a point where fruit-takers does not create enough motivation to the gardeners to keep on going. For instance, if there were some that tought Edgeline would also be free and MIT-licensed and said, well no problem, I’ll will start my own GUI designer with blackjack and hookers under MIT, it would be something like we call in Mexico: “To kick the manger”.
I know it is possible some will not like it, like when RedHat shifted from CentOS LTS to CentOS Stream, but it was actually affecting their scheme of income about selling support, since a lot of people tought: “Let’s just get a good Linux administrator and its like a free RHEL.”
Anyway it may continue, I give you a huge thumbs up.
Imho changing the LVGL license needs a proper thread. There’s also the risk of killing an organic open-source community, cfr. Audacity caused an uproar when they changed the Contributors License Agreement. Unless something is fundamentally broken in the current LVGL license model, I would think long and hard before trying to “fix” or “improve” it.
That’s one way to look at it… There needs to be some balance alright. Also in regards to users, contributors and the maintainers. While Edgeline is an admirable project/product by the LLC, it shouldn’t have a direct impact on the LVGL license. But hey, that’s just my 2₵.
Yes, you are right. Probably a dedicated thread of LVGL license is not required as it is seen that it may be not very welcome. My comments were just a tought of open-source licesing about a model that allows freedom while also giving terrain for commercial development of the contributors.
Or maybe is not yet time to turn off the stove…
I think that LVGL has all the features of what I like to call “trascendental software”, like the Linux kernel, Apache web server and such. It’s not like those little code snippets you sometimes find in Gist licensed under GPL and you say: “Really?, GPL for this snippet? The license text is bigger than your code man… Now I can’t use it in my project for my employer”.
LVGL has improved a lot, with the most noticeable improvement coming from v6 to v7, it can profile itself to be an excellent Qt alternative. And precisely for its usefulness it can become a target of patent trolling.
Of course all I am saying is a personal perspective, I am no contributor to LVGL and even if I were with a pair of commits, I wouldn’t expect to have the same weight as the most prominent contributors… That will be like buying a pair of Amazon’s shares and then go to Amazon HQ and saying: “Now hear me out Jeff, I didn’t like your last rocket, we need to change the design. Oh, and don’t wear that cowboy hat again”.
https://www.lesinskis.com/MIT-licence-community-hostile.html
This thread is going off-topic since it now involves LVGL licensing, instead of Edgeline.
As far as I know, no Edgeline sources will not be open sourced. So any license granted would just cover the usage of the application and/or the generated c or python code.
My main reason for posting was that LVGL licensing is being discussed in an Edgeline thread. I don’t have any say in the matter either, but it is nice to know this is being discussed openly. Hence my suggestion to move that part of the discussion to a dedicated thread.
If the purpose is to protect the LVGL project from patent trolls, that would be a fundamental and justifiable reason… I’m not knowledgeable about the potential pitfalls of different license options, so I find the link you provided very insightful. Now it’s kinda scary to think about how many projects use the MIT License, including some of my own…
Yes, I apologize for continuing the thread here, but going off-topic is a “soft” way of starting to deal with this, otherwise if not started properly it can cause the uproar Audicity license change caused. And yes, the license change I am talking about involves LVGL core, not Edgeline.
If the proposed license for LVGL is MPL, it should start with the most common things that comes to mind:
About Edgline I think generated code should include a special kind of “license” of no warranties or liabilities. The same as generated programs by GCC, which are royalty free and of your property, but you cannot assume any kind of implied warranty by the GNU project on the generated code.