On 4 Apr 2000, Paul D. Smith wrote:
> %% Christian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> c> On Tue, Mar 28, 2000 at 05:19:59PM +0200, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes wrote:
> >> >>>>> "Ramon" == Ramon Diaz-Uriarte <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> >> GNU software is software endorsed by the FSF as part of the GNU
> >> system. LyX is certainly not in this category.
> >> Anyway LyX is distributed under the GNU GPL. At least it is our intent
> >> :)
>
> c> I think the way this is gotten around is for the software to be
> c> released under a modified GPL where the author(s) give special
> c> permission for the GPL software to be linked against the non-GPL
> c> library -- basically it's the same situation that exists with KDE.
>
> Except, of course, that the licenses on KDE apps _don't_ give that
> permission. That's why there's contention over the legality or
> otherwise of KDE amongst the GNU set.
>
> The LyX license does make such an exception, so, no problem there.
We [Larry] wrote the clause to satisfy Debian. I think many of us
interpret the GPL differently to FSF and Debian. When I studied it at the
time I thought the license contradicted itself about linking -- Debian
quoted one clause but another seemed to say it was alright to link to
closed-source libraries. But it's all down to lawyers in the end, right
Larry? Besides it's their distribution so their interpretation is what
counted.
> Nevertheless, the FSF won't accept LyX as GNU software as long as it
> relies on non-free libraries like xforms. Does it matter?
I'm sure there will be some amongst them that will hate us once we have
Windows gui support (via MFC) and whatever other closed source toolkits
people see fit to port LyX to even if we KDE and Gnome ports to balance
things out.
Allan. (ARRae)
