On Wed, 12 Sep 2001, Gervase Markham wrote:
>>
>> Screw open source. 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.
>
> In which case, let's just stick with the MPL, which is a free software
> license, according to the FSF.
It's not a strong copyleft, though. (Neither, for that matter, is an
MPL+GPL dual license.)
>> The LGPL should only be used when it can do this
>> better than the GPL
>
> Straight off the FSF's rhetoric pages, as if they were the only two
> licenses ever to exist.
Please go back and read the context in which I said that. I only mentioned
the LGPL because someone had suggested using it; my point is that one
should *not* use it. And yes, the GPL is (to my knowledge) the only strong
copyleft license.
>> -- namely, when the service that the library provides
>> is already commonly provided. The services that Mozilla provides do not
>> fall into that category, and therefore IMHO we have no need to be
>> promoting proprietary software
>
> Did I really read that? From a man who just spent the best part of a
> year working for a company which makes proprietary software out of
> Mozilla code, and which is doing a great job of legitimising web
> standards in the mainstream through wide distribution is NS 6.1, thereby
> rendering Mozilla un-irrelevant?
Give me one reason why Netscape could not do this while simultaneously
promoting free software using the GPL. (Please read my last post before
saying "the COOL components" and the post before that before saying
"Flash" or "RealPlayer".)
>> And that is exactly WHY I am against using the LGPL. An LGPL project
>> should NOT be using free software code. If the project wants the code that
>> much, it should switch to a strong copyleft free software license.
>
> Just like that? Given the stress we've been through trying to relicense,
> you say that sentence very glibly.
We have only been through so much stress because we are a HUGE project,
one of the biggest in fact. And you miss an important point -- the LGPL
can switch to the GPL easily (and without getting everyone's permission).
So there would be very little stress involved. If the MPL had a clause
saying it could switch to the GPL, it would be easy for us too. (I
understand that such a clause in the NPL is one of the reasons we are
considering this at all.)
>> This is one of the main reasons we should move Mozilla to the GPL -- so
>> that this kind of problem does not arise.
>
> Do you seriously, for one second, think that Netscape (to name but one
> of the commercial companies which use our code and have contributed)
> will agree to that?
I see no technical or logical reason why they should not. Of course, in my
experience, logic is not always relevant in such contexts.
Either way, Ben B has made it clear that _he_ would block a move to the
GPL, so what Netscape says is rather academic.
--
Ian Hickson )\ _. - ._.) fL
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