An Update on Spline Licensing | Hacker News Reader

An Update on Spline Licensing

raphlinus.github.io

48 pointsedwintorok12 comments

This is wonderful news. Spiro splines are very cool, but I never considered them a real option for any projects I was working on because of the licensing issue. Hobby splines were the patent unencumbered next best choice as far as I could tell, but Spiro semantics always seemed incrementally preferable.

Raph's thesis on splines is a fun read: https://www.levien.com/phd/thesis.pdf

And the original paper on Hobby splines: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2FBF02187690.p...

Can you comment on the advantages of this implementation comparing to the one used in Inkscape or other popular software?

I'll be giving at talk at Libre Graphics Meeting in a couple weeks on exactly this topic. I'll make the slides available as well. Hopefully they'll make the front page of Hacker News also, as that seems to be a thing these days for my work :)

Cool, looking forward to the talk.

My first job as a software developer was writing AutoCAD extensions (in "AutoLisp" so you can guess how old I am).

Even if I don't work in the field anymore the topic is still fascinating for me.

THIS IS WONDERFUL!!!

And needs to be applauded loudly.

I've heavily criticized GNU family licenses, and HN has been full of companies who have moved from more Open licenses (MIT, Apache 2, BSD, ZLIB, etc.) to more restrictive licenses (GPL, AGPL) and "open core" crippleware has become trendy lately by failing companies trying to exploit their communities to survive.

To see a move from GPL to Apache2/MIT is fantastic!

Let's hope that this starts a trend. :)

Great work!

Thanks for the kind words.

>I am passing all patents into the public domain. I’d like to say a few words about why.

Honest question: How does that work? Is it enough for the author to say that they are in the public domain now?

He pushed https://github.com/raphlinus/spiro/blob/master/LICENSE-MIT which should definitely be enough. :)

if they are truly in the public domain, one doesn't need to respect any licensing?

For the patents yes, but the code is still copyrighted, so the new Apache/MIT licenses apply. They’re quite permissive though so I can’t imagine many uses that would run afoul of them.

It's a fine question. In the past, I've had a lawyer draft a patent grant (this was in 2000, there's a bit on my Wikipedia page about it). This time, I did two things.

First, and to make it legally very crisp, I used an Apache 2 license, which comes with an explicit patent grant. Second, renewal is coming up for the Spiro patent, and I'm not renewing it. Nor am I pursuing the provisional on the new spline work. These will take a few months to become legally binding, as theoretically I could change my mind, but the first I think makes it official right now.

Great news!

I'm certainly no artist, but on occasion I do need to create graphics. I absolutely loathe using Bezier-Splines, but the Spiro-Splines in Inkscape are a joy to use.

That said, Inkscape isn't necessarily the nicest or most popular tool, so I hope many more artists (and non-artists!) will get to use them in the future.

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