Use Lightspark as a reference resource?

[stux2000]

Hi everybody,

As a continuation of my suggestion here, I am opening a new issue in hopes to explore what kind of information exchange, if any, would be possible between the lightspark and Ruffle projects. It was brought to my attention by @sampleserver that the project's licenses are somewhat incompatible. While the GPL-licensed Lightspark can borrow code from Ruffle, the reverse is not possible due to the infectious nature of GPL.

Based on that is seems are options are limited to either updating Lightspark or Ruffle to the other's license (quite unlikely it seems) or perhaps using Lightspark as reference for the Ruffle implementation.

This too is a tedious solution as well: code cannot in any way be copied directly, but is it possible to study the Lightspark code and write new implementations using that code? I've also been informed in lightspark issue 596 that its codebase is not very modular, possibly making it harder to use as reference.

So, is there any hope of advancing progress with using Lightspark as a resource or is this not a viable option at the moment?

-@Stux

[Herschel]

Thank you for opening an issue! We're certainly open to sharing knowledge and collaboration, contributions are always welcome. It boils down to these problems:

• License issues. Even consulting GPL code can be problematic, because the resulting code could be considered a "derivative work" and thus affected by the virality of the GPL.
• Technical issues. Lightspark and Ruffle have codebases in different languages, so any code sharing would be limited. It would likely boil down to knowledge-exchange as above, and then writing new implementations as fits the project.

Lightspark is quite a bit more advanced than Ruffle, so I'm not sure how helpful we'd be in that direction.

Given the above, I think what is most practically useful are issues or discussions like these:
#2258
which point out undocumented "gotchas", so that we don't repeat the same mistake and save time on implementation.

[stux2000]

Thank you for your quick response @Herschel !

I was concerned about the consulting issue with GPL and it's unfortunate to hear that it's answered in the negative.

I also didn't realize that Lightspark's codebase is more advanced (if I understood correctly). It would be good if experienced lightspark developers could consult with this project with the aim of providing advise such that that presented in 2258. I don't know if that isn't already the case but I also wouldn't know how to go about it as i'm not involved with either project beyond my attempt at filing issues intended for information and/or technology interchange.

I'm wondering if this ticket should be closed or if there are any possible avenues of exploration remaining?

-stux

[ROBERT-MCDOWELL]

I would mention also that lightspark is Actionscript 3 only