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Boden – Native mobile cross-platform applications

boden.io

101–110 of 134 posts

Re: Boden – Native mobile cross-platform applications

#101
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boden author here, a bit overwhelmed by the feedback. We are in the process of releasing a new version that will change the license to LGPL / Commercial.

Why not MIT License?

We have put a lot of effort into investigating and assessing different licensing options. There are two different perspectives on this: the user perspective where MIT of course seems to be among the most attractive ones at first glance. Then, there's the company perspective: what is the business model and how is development going to be sustainable in the long run?

We have come to the conclusion that LGPL is currently the best option to align both of these perspectives and provide the best value in the long run.

If GPL/LGPL isn't sufficient for you, we'll be offering a commercial license with fair terms as an alternative.

Re: Boden – Native mobile cross-platform applications

#102
post #65

Forget Boden and forget messy C++... use Google backed Flutter framework with Dart. https://flutter.dev Checkout youtube for presentations. Build once for iOS, Android, ChromeOS, Web, All desktops.

Any recommendations on good sources for tutorials? Just the flutter dev channel or are there any good 3rd parties?

Re: Boden – Native mobile cross-platform applications

#103
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it reasonable to expect people to buy a commercial license if releasing a free app to a commercial app store? Probably depends on the reasonable(?) license fee.

If it's a truly free app, why not release your source code?

Maybe because some mega corp will figure out how to offer it as a service, and they'll get nothing for it. I support them defending themselves with a way to maybe make money on it. If they can't eat, they can't update the code.

Re: Boden – Native mobile cross-platform applications

#104
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have experience with plenty of languages, including doing UI programming in Haskell, just to make your point. If Rust answer to typical UI programming patterns is "you are holding it wrong" then don't expect too much uptake by mainstream UI developers. See Catherine's talk about their game engine implementation, regarding use-after-free indexes, and techniques to avoid it, by binding timestamps to indexes.

I don't think Rust has any one answer to a UI problem, since the UI story is basically the wild west right now. Everyone is doing something a little different. I didn't mean to imply that, just that when I see people complain about the ergonomics of the language and point to using a bunch of Rc > stuff usually smells funny, it implies to me that you're either trying to use OO or control flow architectures and pattern…

Catherine is relatively known in the Rust community, hence why I didn't mention anything else.

Here is her keynote talk at Rust Conf 2018.

https://youtu.be/aKLntZcp27M

Re: Boden – Native mobile cross-platform applications

#105
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LGPL has the same problem! Users must be able to relink an application with their own version of the LGPL library. This is impossible for almost all iOS scenarios and only very slightly easier on Android. This is often overlooked. If you want to keep LGPL you can investigate "linking exception", it's used by some GNU libraries if I recall correctly. This has been discussed for a decade: https://stackoverflow.com/ques…

Please take the following with a grain of salt. I am not a legal expert, but we have competent US lawyers assessing this for us right now. The main issue we see with the GPL is that your app has to be effectively licensed under the GPL too, which makes your app's license incompatible with the iOS App Store's terms of service. This is apparently not the case with the LGPL. Yes, you will have to provide a way for users…

Tell me, when your user has downloaded an app and wants to relink it with their custom version of Boden, how do they proceed?

Re: Boden – Native mobile cross-platform applications

#106

I don't speak C, but as a long-time web developer, it smells to me to see "Center" capitalized in the flexbox snippet. Why is it different than CSS? How is a developer supposed to understand the capitalization rules? https://www.boden.io/reference/ui/yoga/layout/

>How is a developer supposed to understand the capitalization rules?

By relying on the compiler to check it?

Re: Boden – Native mobile cross-platform applications

#107
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Rust has any one answer to a UI problem, since the UI story is basically the wild west right now. Everyone is doing something a little different. I didn't mean to imply that, just that when I see people complain about the ergonomics of the language and point to using a bunch of Rc > stuff usually smells funny, it implies to me that you're either trying to use OO or control flow architectures and pattern…

Catherine is relatively known in the Rust community, hence why I didn't mention anything else. Here is her keynote talk at Rust Conf 2018. https://youtu.be/aKLntZcp27M

Ah ok had to skim through the slides a bit, I think you meant to use the phrase "generational indexes" which is why googling didn't help me. This project was more helpful for my understanding:

https://github.com/fitzgen/generational-arena

I'm not sure what your ultimate point was though? You don't have to use anything like that in normal Rust code

Re: Boden – Native mobile cross-platform applications

#108
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please take the following with a grain of salt. I am not a legal expert, but we have competent US lawyers assessing this for us right now. The main issue we see with the GPL is that your app has to be effectively licensed under the GPL too, which makes your app's license incompatible with the iOS App Store's terms of service. This is apparently not the case with the LGPL. Yes, you will have to provide a way for users…

Tell me, when your user has downloaded an app and wants to relink it with their custom version of Boden, how do they proceed?

LGPL 2.1 6c - on request, you provide the user with object code they can link against their custom version. Should be enough, if no other terms of the app store get in the way?

(VLC is an example of a well-known program that relicensed to LGPL and now is available in the app store, so clearly it is possible)

Re: Boden – Native mobile cross-platform applications

#109
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please take the following with a grain of salt. I am not a legal expert, but we have competent US lawyers assessing this for us right now. The main issue we see with the GPL is that your app has to be effectively licensed under the GPL too, which makes your app's license incompatible with the iOS App Store's terms of service. This is apparently not the case with the LGPL. Yes, you will have to provide a way for users…

Tell me, when your user has downloaded an app and wants to relink it with their custom version of Boden, how do they proceed?

If the app is open source (or at least the source code is accessible), the user would proceed to the source repo, clone it, open the Xcode project and relink to the framework version of their choice.

Others have pointed out how it could work with closed source apps. It's a bit more complicated, but it certainly is possible.

Re: Boden – Native mobile cross-platform applications

#110
post #65

Forget Boden and forget messy C++... use Google backed Flutter framework with Dart. https://flutter.dev Checkout youtube for presentations. Build once for iOS, Android, ChromeOS, Web, All desktops.

performance. the Dart VM is one thing. C and C++ are closer to the bare metal.
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