On Mon, Dec 10, 2001 at 04:49:32PM +0000, Julian Hall wrote: > Jeroen Dekkers wrote: > > > It's not a done deal. You can change the LGPL to the GPL at any moment > > according to cause 3 of the LGPL. If there isn't any reason to license > > it under the LGPL, I suggest licensing it under the GPL. It protects the > > freedom of the code much better. > > Does it? I can't think of anything that I can do with an LGPL'd product > that I can't do with a GPL product that in any way damages the "freedom" of > the code. If you can think of anything, I suggest you discuss it with the > FSF's lawyers, because they've worked hard to make the LGPL as watertight as > the GPL while giving users of the code a few more freedoms.
IMHO every piece of proprietary code damages the freedom of the user. The GPL prohibits this and thus you have more freedom IMHO. Perhaps my wording wasn't correct by saying "freedom of the code." > > I am not sure wether it's possible to > > run plex86 on windoze (I don't care about it either, but other people do > > afaics), but we could make an exception for that. > > Adding exceptions to licences is a bad idea, IMHO, unless they are very > clean and apply in a broad set of circumstances (such as the so-called 'libc > exception', which states "merely linking with this library does not cause > the result to come under the provisions of the GPL" (my paraphrasing)). Hmm, I have never heard of that exception. Glibc is just under the LGPL. "You have the permission to use this on any host OS" is very clean IMHO. (well maybe the wording can be changed, but that doesn't matter for the issue) > > Oh by the way, I don't speak about open source anymore, I prefer the > > term free software. You can find the reasons why I do speak about free > > software at the following homepage: > > http://www.fsfeurope.org/documents/whyfs.en.html > > > > And I use 'open source' because of the reasons here: > http://www.opensource.org/advocacy/free-notfree.html > > Does it really matter enough to raise it here? IMHO it matters, open source is bad term for the reasons stated in the url. It's even so bad that one of the founders of the OSI (Bruce Perens) doesn't speak about open source anymore, only about free software. But this issue is offtopic here. > > > If one steps back a minute and looks at the big picture, > > > it is more obvious that the real issues regarding > > > many of these GPL vs LGPL discussions stem from > > > architectural defects in the software, not the > > > fscking license. Make everything modular by design, > > > give it a "library" license and then you can share it. > > > This of course means you need a common interface. Those > > > are technical issues. > > > > The LGPL isn't a license for libraries, only often used for that. That's > > why it's also renamed to Lesser GPL. The GPL is better for a lot of > > libraries. > > Is it? In my experience, GPL tends to discourage library use, as you can > only really use a GPL library in a GPL program. Despite what you may wish > for, there are a lot of programs out there that aren't GPL. The GPL encourages the making of free software. If the library is GPL and a programmer wants to use it, he makes his program free software. This doesn't have to be under the GPL, there are also a lot GPL-compatible licenses. It only discourages use of the library by people who want to restrict the user freedoms and I don't care about those people. > > You can also make software modular by design and put it under > > the GPL, no problem with that. It's the thing what's done in GNU's > > kernel replacement, the Hurd (note: The Hurd isn't a kernel, it are a > > bunch of servers running on a microkernel). I don't see what licensing > > has to do with architectural defects. > > Parts of the Hurd couldn't be shared with a system that wasn't GPL. This is > probably what the Hurd's authors intended. Kevin (and others) obviously > intended to allow parts of Plex86 to be shared with software that isn't GPL. Part of plex86 could be shared with software under a GPL-compatible license if plex86 was under the GPL. I don't know any code to link plex86 with which isn't under a GPL-compatible license. > > > But the biggest problem is that us OSS idiots repeatedly > > > reinvent stuff over and over and over. Then squabble when > > > we have trouble sharing code, because of inane licensing > > > issues. > > > > There might be a reason for reinventing stuff. Maybe to do it better, or > > because you have another goal in mind. I don't see why it's idiotic to > > reinvent something if you feel it is better to do. > > Because very often the only reason for doing so is because you want to have > it available under a different licensing scheme. LGPL avoids this by > allowing the result to be used under a different license under certain > expectations which are easy to meet in most circumstances (although the > question of using LGPL code in a non-LGPL embedded system has been raised, > and is probably a violation of the licence). I don't see any reason to have it under a different license scheme. The only reason would be restricting other people's freedom, something I don't want to do. > > > "Fail to plan, plan to fail" > > > > > > My suggestion is that if sharing is desired, pursue a > > > common modular plugin interface. > > > > That might be useful, but that can sitll be done under the GPL. You > > should not do such things just because of the licenses, but because it's > > the Right Thing. > > You can't do it under the GPL if one of the applications intended to use the > plugins isn't under the GPL. It's possible with plugins under GPL-compatible licenses. I don't know any plugins with might be useful for plex86 which aren't under such licenses. Writing new plugin under a restrictive license doesn't make sense IMHO. > Sorry, I for one firmly believe that plex86 should remain LGPL, and I'm sure > there are many others on this list who would agree with me. I think it should be GPL (with maybe an exception for a non-free host OS). But that it probably an already lost battle. > Jules > (an interested lurker) Jeroen Dekkers (an interested user and perhaps developer of plex86) -- Jabber supporter - http://www.jabber.org Jabber ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Debian GNU supporter - http://www.debian.org http://www.gnu.org IRC: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
