Ian Hickson wrote: >must allow _their_ end users to reverse engineer their >program, > Does "their peogram" include linked libraries?
>which at this stage includes the MSVC++ code, which the end user >is not allwed to reverse engineer. > Who says that? In Europe, reverse engineering is allowed for ensuring compatibility. >>>The only case where I can see a problem is where a specific LGPL >>>library wishes to use Mozilla's code directly (i.e., not linking to >>>it). Is there really such a case? >>> >>I think so. That's the idea of open-source -- >> >Screw open source. > Oh, we're getting a bit too philosophically for my taste here. >The idea of free software is that ALL users should be >able to run the source, study the source, adapt the source, and >redistribute the source. > "Adapt the source" (and use it) would not be not possible here. >The LGPL should only be used when it can do this >better than the GPL -- namely, when the service that the library provides >is already commonly provided. The services that Mozilla provides do not >fall into that category, > It does. MSIE is wide-spread and often incorporated in other apps. There are a lot of companies which had the choice between MSIE and Mozilla, and some of them chose Mozilla (and I think that Nokia chose Linux in part because of the availability of Mozilla, while a Mozilla that disallows the use of Macromedia Flash and RealPlayer might have been out of question). >http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/why-not-lgpl.html > I wholly disagree with parts of that doc. It speaks about forcing people to use make software "free" (GPL), and "force" is not "free" in my book. But, it also says "We free software developers should support one another.". (I make no distinction between free software and open source here.) That's exactly my point - allowing other projects to use our code. If we are starting fights with "free" vs. "open" and deny each other code, we only harm ourselves, IMO. >>to have a large pool of software you can use to build new projects. >>Let's say, I want to use the TXT->HTML converter in an LGPL project. I >>may have to change the string classes, but most of the code could be >>reused. I would not even be allowed to reuse a few lines, if it is >>under the MPL or the GPL only (ignoring that I happened to write it >>myself). >> >And that is exactly WHY I am against using the LGPL. An LGPL project >should NOT be using free software code. > Are you saying that LGPL code is not "free"? Is only the pure GPL in your view? That doesn't seem to be supported by <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html>. >If the project wants the code that >much, it should switch to a strong copyleft free software license. > It won't. >we should move Mozilla to the GPL -- so >that this kind of problem does not arise. > This is impossible. People who contributed code to Mozilla are objecting that. (I am not one of them, as long as my code is still usable/available under terms which *I* consider free, for which the GPL does not qualify.) >>The GPL is, IMO, not as free as other licenses. >> >You're right, it isn't. > (That's why I think that the term "Free Software" is wholly inappropriate and misleading.) >It was very carefully designed to make it >impossible to use GPL-covered software in proprietary environments. > > http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.html > I don't speak less about proprietary environments, but other open source environments, like the MPL, LGPL etc etc..
