On Tue, Aug 13, 2013 at 3:27 PM, Kevin Krammer <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi, > > On Monday, 2013-08-12, Ryan Bramantya wrote: >> Hi Kevin, [^_^] >> >> Yes :) >> >> > Btw, I recommend to keep the attribution lines intact. >> >> I'm sorry I didn't know what it (attribution lines) means > > As Andrej explained it is the line that says who wrote what in a thread. > >> > There is simply no such thing as "better" when it comes to licensing. >> >> >> There is such thing. If not, there is no point for Richard Stallman to >> suggest Vorbis Library licensing under BSD-like license and not under GPL >> or even the Lesser GPL. > > Better is dependent on context on the what goals one wants to achieve, etc. > Richard Stallman's goal is always to protect the four freedoms he identified > as important decades ago. > In your example taking away the excuse of licensing on code dealing with an > open format helps the user's freedom (no data lock-in) more than ensuring all > of the products using the format respect the freedoms as well. > It is a trade-off, a compromise. > >> > Well, if we were simple media representatives than yes, that would > probably >> >> > our view. Fortunately, as IT professionals, we have a way bigger picture >> > and >> > know that Linux has been a tremendous success in a lot of fields long >> > before >> > mobile device vendors started using it. >> > Those are basically just the tip of the iceberg, the part that is visible >> > by >> > the uneducated population. >> >> The advantage of technology is not just to be enjoyed by some professionals >> in a particular field, but for every class of user. We can enjoyed an >> advantages of Ferrari or Duccati without needed to become a mechanical >> engineer as we can enjoyed an advantages of Linux Kernel in Android without >> needed to become an IT professionals. We cannot said someone as uneducated >> just because they didn't know what Linux kernel was. What you say as >> uneducated may be a doctor, a biologist, a lawyer, a historian, a >> president, a pastor, etc. who just have no time to examine what Linux was. >> Just like an IT professionals who may didn't know about *Osteoprotegerin*, >> TNFRSF11B gene, *pacta sunt servanda*, history of mongol, etc. > > I wasn't using uneducated in terms of higher education but to categorize "not > knowing about it". > It is not about enjoing the benefits of something, rather the opposite. People > enjoy the benefits of Linux and other Free Software without knowing that they > do. They might know about it within certain limits, e.g. that Firefox is Free > Software or that Android is. > We as IT professionals see a greater picture, we know that it is being used in > tons of devices that normal people do not even consider to be computer > equipment, etc. > >> > Sure, if there hadn't been KHTML or if it had been permissively licensed >> > then >> > there would be not WebKit. Fortunately a team of dedicated engineers at >> > KDE created a world class HTML render engine plus a JavaScript engine >> > and licensed >> > it in a way that both allowed usage in prorprietary context but also >> > ensured >> > that improvements would become available under the same terms as well. >> >> If KHTML licensed under GPL in the first place, Apple wouldn't interested >> to take its source code and enhance it. > > That wouldn't have made sense in the first place, would it? > A HTML render engine is clearly something that is used by developers rather > than end users directly, hence falling under the platform consideration of the > license policy. > >> > Obviously we at KDE (myself included) wouldn't put tons of our code under >> > LGPL >> > license terms if we thought it would be bad license, wouldn't we? >> >> From this point of view, I think we are same. I never persuade LXDE-Qt >> >> developers to use permissive license. I only convinced them to use LGPL >> instead of GPL, both for libraries and for its native (non-3rd party) >> applications. > > Sure, I don't have any issue with that. > I just don't see what difference it would make, application code is not > something anyone will link against, any modification is equally affected by > LGPL or GPL license terms.
This indeed makes differences. Sometimes you may want to take some code from a GPL'd application, and put that piece of code in your own library. It's not a rare case. If your lib is LGPL, you cannot reuse GPL'd code in it. Otherwise your lib will be infected and need to use GPL instead. Using a more permissive license make your code easier to utilize for others, and this is always good. The drawback, however, is you cannot reuse any infectious GPL code from other projects. We may gain more users and possibly more developers who like a more permissive license, but we lose much potentially reusable code at the same time. Making lib code LGPL is reasonable and I support the idea. Making application code LGPL is also reasonable since it's possible in the future to move some code from the app to a lib, and keep it LGPL. However, one should consider the risk that we'll not be able to reuse GPL'd code from others. In conclusion, I support the idea of: 1. libs use LGPL or MIT 2. apps can use GPL or LGPL. 3. develop new apps with LGPL if possible, and do not relicense existing GPL'd apps. 4. linking GPL and LGPL'd components is easy. Just use dbus. Calling a GPL'd program from a non-GPL one via dbus is perfectly legal and do not involve lib linking at all. It's safe for system services to be in GPL as long as it can be called via IPC. >> > Sure, but that isn't a licensing problem. KDE software, for example, is >> > being used on operating system ranging from extremely persmissive to >> > fully proprietary. >> >> Sometimes license can become a problem. The depreciation of GCC in FreeBSD >> base system is one of the example. And I never hear a fully proprietary >> operating system with copyleft component in it. > > KDE software is known to run on proprietary platforms such as Mac OSX or > Microsoft Windows, WebKit is known to be part of Mac OSX, Apple iOS, and > BlackBerry10. > > Cheers, > Kevin > > -- > Kevin Krammer, KDE developer, xdg-utils developer > KDE user support, developer mentoring ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Get 100% visibility into Java/.NET code with AppDynamics Lite! It's a free troubleshooting tool designed for production. Get down to code-level detail for bottlenecks, with <2% overhead. Download for free and get started troubleshooting in minutes. http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=48897031&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk _______________________________________________ Lxde-list mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/lxde-list
