utf8 VS nbdkit

I used https://github.com/kumkee/utf8 (along with a bit of hacking) in my toy scheme interpreter to get Unicode strings.

Had to adapt some script I found to generate character class lookup functions to make it fully work IIRC and still need to plug-in some sort of copy on write mechanism since the strings managed in a shared buffer but other than that it works pretty well…if you’re into the unicorn strings that is.

This is correct, but doesn't quite explain why. It's because when you accept contributions from a variety of authors, without using a CLA, then your code base ends up with a patchwork of copyright, making relicensing practically impossible as you have to get buy-in from every author or else determine that author's contributions and remove/rewrite them.

GPL/LGPL are excellent licenses, but this patchwork of copyright can apply for any license you use. For a small project we wrote which was under BSD, we recently had to make a small (non-functional) change to the license, and we got buy-in from all the authors to do this which took quite a long time: https://gitlab.com/nbdkit/nbdkit/-/commit/952ffe0fc7685ea775...

That second link is wrong, should be: https://gitlab.com/nbdkit/nbdkit/-/commit/a956e2e75d6c88eeef...

I think an exception might be made for a plain "C-like" struct that doesn't initialize members or contain anything except basic types. In the specific example[0] the code is actually surrounded by extern "C" { ... } so I suppose that the compiler "knows" this is a plain C struct?

[0] https://gitlab.com/nbdkit/nbdkit/-/blob/cd761c9bf770b23f678f...

We relicensed[1] a project which had 10 contributors, and we got every single one of them to do an Acked-by (by email) which took some weeks. That was the advice from our lawyers. Can't imagine the impossible hassle of doing the same for something like Linux.

[1] https://gitlab.com/nbdkit/nbdkit/-/commit/952ffe0fc7685ea775...