Show HN: Gridifier – Dynamic grid layouts for real-time apps | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Gridifier – Dynamic grid layouts for real-time apps

gridifier.io

69 pointsszdszdszd33 comments

> You can use Gridifier for free under the non-commercial license. Non-commercial license is valid only if you are creating non-profit and personal projects. In such cases Gridifier license is GPLv3.

This is not how GPL works. By providing it as GPLv3, you've permitted people to redistribute it as they like under the GPLv3, including to themselves (and anyone else they feel like) for commercial purposes, as long as they themselves follow GPLv3's requirements.

Huh, TIL. Out of curiosity, is there a license that would allow them to be FOSS only for non-commercial use, but having customers pay for commercial use, like they want?

Dual-license under CC-BY-NC-SA and a proprietary one?

No, placing such restrictions makes it neither free nor open source. It'd be "shared source", perhaps.

Can someone please point to some credible source with a clear explanation how of how you're supposed to license F/OSS for profit?

I can't figure it out.

Support and additional services.

For example, WordPress.com does pretty well, despite the codebase being GPLed. Same for RedHat - they're quite successful despite all their packages being available via CentOS, because of paid support subscriptions, certifications, etc.

But what about companies like highcharts?

Just answered my own question: http://shop.highsoft.com/highcharts.html

Yep. Creative Commons isn't FOSS.

Or assume that GPL is painful enough (or for server code AGPL) that companies would rather pay for a license than dealing with it.

(Especially browser JS is something where you'll find gigantic discussions about exactly how far GPL infects other code)

It's often difficult to use GPL libraries commercially anyways. One way of handling things is to just make it GPL, and sell an alternative proprietary license. Qt does this quite successfully, and the FSF thinks its a reasonable way of doing things.

https://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/selling-exceptions

Ah, yes, that's what I was thinking about. If you dual-license as "free with GPL or pay for alternative license", companies likely won't use the GPL option because they don't want their own code to end up GPL'd. This strategy probably works much better if your customers are big companies with IP lawyers than if they're a startup or a random hacker building a service.

So it the cat out of the bag or can they claim it was a mistake and change the license ex post facto?

"Any use of Gridifier for a commercial purpose is subject to and requires a commercial license. With commercial license GPLv3 license terms are not used. Instead of that, terms described on developer license page are applyied."

That means, that if product is being used for commercial purposes, GPLv3 license rules are not applied.

> That means, that if product is being used for commercial purposes, GPLv3 license rules are not applied.

Except GPL section 7 says I can ignore your non-commercial restriction. If you want to restrict commercial use, you must pick a different license. GPL won't work.

here is the full text for you to examine

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.txt

another post mentions section seven: Additional Terms; i had to look it up to check the commentator's assertion

i'd suggest explaining in clear terms what you would like to achieve with the licensing of your work

i am sure the people here would be happy to help you find an agreeable license

another resource: http://choosealicense.com/licenses/

Ok, I have read section 7 one more time and debates over the internet. As I see many users are unhappy with such type of dual licensing.

Which scheme will be perfectly clear for everyone? Will http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ for non-commercial/ developer license for commercial be ok for everyone?

Unless you're a contract lawyer I would always default to assuming the least beneficial outcome for yourself when something isn't clear cut.

Switched to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

I think there are better licenses for the "want your cake and eat it too" scenario.

Not a contract lawyer, but close enough friends with people who are attorneys at the EFF. Once it enters the public domain under the GPL terms, even if you dual license it with a caveat for commercial use, if a binary is released either licensed as, or containing elements of code licensed as, the GPL, it remains under the GPL. Hence why the GPL has a reputation of being "infectious". Ultimately, you'll have attorneys arguing over the semantics of the wording such as: >> "For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code... plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable." e.g., does this include any binaries produced using the GCC toolset? Commonly agreed as no. What if you bundle a Linux distribution - in a binary fashion - that contains the Linux kernel (Oracle Linux, which is indisputably GPL[1], containing the Oracle Unbreakable Kernel (including components of dtrace (indisputably BSD) + ksplice (definitively GPL, and GPLv2 for that matter) which are tightly coupled into the kernel?).

People have been court ordered to release their source-code for distributing proprietary software released to the public for using BusyBee as their hardware's base. Oracle has a bigger bankroll than the average corporation. It could be argued either way until the cows come home but until a court decision is made setting precedent, it remains fairly undetermined. I'd feel more than comfortable using a revision of something that was released, accidentally or not, under the GPL for my product in a commercial setting. But I'd certainly have to comply with any requests for access to the source-code if they come about. (A common misconception is that you have to make the source readily available, e.g. on Github, but you only have to make it available upon request to the requestee.)

[1] http://www.oracle.com/us/technologies/027617.pdf for a very carefully worded read if you want to see lawyers and PR people unify in a beautiful exhibit of linguistic acrobatics

>(A common misconception is that you have to make the source readily available, e.g. on Github, but you only have to make it available upon request to the requestee.)

Correct me if I'm wrong–but to be more specific, my recollection is that the only requester that you are obligated to provide source to is whoever you've distributed binaries to. Of course, they're permitted to distribute it as they please so the distinction may be largely irrelevant.

Anybody with an existing copy acquired under GPL can claim it has to be honored, and courts would likely agree

Can someone point at examples of real time apps where this will be useful?

This is pretty cool. Thank you!

Looks nice, but I use React. Anyone know of something comparable for React?

This library seems to provide most of the functionality: https://github.com/STRML/react-grid-layout

Except the author hang had a stable release in months. Apparently is working on a rewrite but is doing so privately despite several offering support.

Gridifier was designed specially for use with Backbone/Angular/React. We were using Backbone for our apps, but we will definitely look how to sync it with Angular/React. It was too heavy BTW - so the most logical step was to rewrite it completely at first, and after that start creating tutorials+codepens.

React operates completely differently from Backbone and Angular. I've looked only briefly at your code, but it looks like it operates directly on the DOM, which is not going to work with React.

Hmmm, I haven't tried React yet. Yeah, now it operates directly on the DOM, but all functions for DOM manipulation are located in separate class, so maybe we will try hook them somehow. Looked at React docs really quickly, it seems they have been abstracted away DOM manipulation to prevent unnecessary browser reflow/recalc ops. So, I can't predict now how easily it will be to sync it with React.(we will try to do it)

Actually, the virtual DOM isn't to prevent unnecessary operations, it's to ensure consistency. State transitions cause a render, which builds the virtual DOM (for each component) from scratch, ensuring that the same state always results in the same rendering output. This is different from, say, Backbone, where you create or modify individual DOM elements, and this logic is typically spread out across many functions.

It's not an exact comparison, but this is in the ballpark.

https://github.com/FormidableLabs/react-shuffle

Not too bad, thanks. Doesn't have mouse-base drag and drop, unfortunately, and seems not to animate deleted children?

I also like react-grid-layout's support for bin-packing lots of different cell sizes ("masonry"-style). This one seems to require fixed widths and heights.

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