Ext GWT, GWT-Ext. What now?
April 30th, 2008 - Written by in Opinion
Unless you were stuck in a cave this past week, you know about the emergence of Ext GWT and the entire Ext JS GPL licensing debate. We had GWT-Ext’s Sanjiv Jivan weigh in, followed by Ext JS creator Jack Slocum’s heated response. While the whole soap opera is somewhat fascinating, I’m more interested in how these new developments will affect the GWT community’s two most popular widget libraries.
Now that Ext GWT is dual licensed, will people now continue to support it by buying commercial licenses? Ext GWT is certainly a nice library and Darrell deserves to be supported for his work. However it seems like there may be a certain level of mistrust over the license change and there are certainly a subset of people that can’t or won’t go with a commercial solution.
I know Sanjiv remains committed to keeping GWT-Ext under the LGPL and is working hard on resolving potential issues. However, if GWT-Ext remains stuck with Ext JS 2.0.2 (the last LGPL version), will it remain viable as time passes? In one of his arguments, Jack points out that when Firefox 3 and IE 8 come out, it may cause issues for 2.0.2 users. Sanjiv has stated that the library will continue to expand with other features like “Tibco Message Bus, Fusion Charts, Pipes, Extensions, and more”, but will that be enough?
With these changes and uncertainty, will new alternatives appear in the GWT widget library space? Currently, GWT-Ext and Ext-GWT are easily the best looking, and most polished projects we have. There are still projects like GWT Widget Library, and a few others, but in my opinion they are a step down from the first two. It seems like this is a new opportunity for a new library to emerge, perhaps using one of the other major javascript libraries like YUI, JQueryUI or MooTools? Or maybe a new one will be written from scratch like this new GWTLib project or my new ExMyGWTExt library (just kidding).
So what do you think? I’ve stuck a poll down here at the bottom and I’m interested in finding out what the communities’ response will be to the whole situation.
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I’m going to stick with GWT-Ext for now. It’s really a nice library. I really hope Sanjiv and Jack can put aside their differences and that both their libraries can succeed in the future.
It’s obvious to me that Ext GWT is the right way to go, by not considering their license. If there’s another popular pure java solution with GPL, I will use it, otherwise I would buy the license, after they remove the beta tag, support the whole Ext features and has more promising future.
I’m sticking with GWT Ext for now, since there’s still no better choice.
Ext GWT is looking very nice. I really don’t care about the license. if I like it, I’ll buy it. Can’t wait for it to come out of beta.
I have to stick with gwt-ext for now. It’s too feature rich when compared to ext gwt. I’ve been a big supporter of Sanjiv and the gwt-ext product. However, now with Ext behind it, its going to be the future solution. I think Sanjiv should realize people don’t care about buying commercial licensing in return for a solid product with a strong future. For many, stability in a company is more important.
The Ext GWT distribution is illegal since in includes code from Eclipse Public License (EPL).
http://extjs.com/forum/showthread.php?t=34374
“The EPL 1.0 is not compatible with the GPL, and a work created by combining a work licensed under the GPL with a work licensed under the EPL cannot be lawfully distributed.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.....ic_License
[...] of GWT-Ext Unfortunately, Sanjiv is stepping down as GWT-Ext project lead. According to my informal poll, most people would like to stick with GWT-Ext so I hope the project can continue to remain [...]
Far more complex and important projects get given away for free, like MySQL, JEE, JBoss, Hibernate — I mean, you name it, it’s probably free. I wouldn’t mind paying for an Ext GWT license, but this isn’t about just Ext GWT. Imagine if we had to pay for every piece of code we get our hands on? I’d be spending tens of thousands per year on code, if I didn’t just quit altogether. This is why free software was created, and this is why I stick with it.
The whole reason free software is so great is that it democratizes software creation. A penniless schlub in a basement can put into code the next billion-dollar idea that no committee-controlled company would have bothered with.
Ext GWT, by charging for its use, now resigns itself to being a niche product at best, and it makes room in the market for a better, free competitor. I understand that programmers have to eat too, but Ext GWT should have instead adopted a model where they charge for service — like all the other big players. Those who have a low value on their time get the software, while the big companies who have a high value on their time get their code integration. The rich guys indirectly sponsor the poor, and everybody is happy.
I think I would try to look for alternatives for my RIA.
I dont want my customers to put all my third party licences under a microscope just because Jack decided to change his licence.
With so much time invested in building what we currently have I dont think it would be huge price to pay to look for alternatives.
I would definitely miss the goodies provided by Sanjiv and Jack.
Wishing them good luck!!!
I agree with einnocent : free (libre) software is great. Remember that GPL is the founder of free software, GPL is free software and GPL “promotes” free software. What’s the matter with that ? You want proprietary software, you pay, is that so anormal ?
Etx-js is now under GPLv3, and gwt-ext is under LGPLv3. They are fully compatible with each other, so what’s the problem?
Would have to look elsewhere, I think. Nice as both and Gwt-Ext are, this kind of uncertainty around license makes them both too risky to consider for commercial use…
[...] ext-gwt: This project apparently re-implements extjs, by the folks who wrote extjs. Here’s more about the differences between ext-gwt and gwt-ext. [...]
[...] [2]http://pablotron.org/?cid=1556 [3]https://gwtsite.com/ext-gwt-gwt-ext-what-now/ [4]http://ajaxian.com/archives/to-gwt-ext-or-to-ext-gwt [...]
This is a very nice article, I try to follow up for my example. OK, and I want to sugguest new best artical about GWT and Eclipse, That is Extjs-GWT on Eclipse which reduce development time.
I like this example and try to use extjs-gwt in eclipse project.
See more about Extjs-GWT on Eclipse by using Eclipse’s plugin.
I think this Extjs-GWT article can help beginner to learn faster.