On 8/31/07, Chad Z. Hower aka Kudzu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > This is the first opensource project i've worked with, can somebody > > (in plain english) explain the difference between all the licenses? > > I'm not too familiar with the details. > > MPL, is that the 'Mozilla Public License'? > > > > Personally, to be honest, i don't care too much about the license, as > > long as it's both open and not too limiting to people outside the > > 'sharpos community' > > Ill try and dig up a summary of each, but for now (and this is a best > estimate, not exact..) > > But they go from super restrictive, to super permissive: > > GPL > LGPL > MPL > BSD/IX? > > I like BSD, but Im not restrictive about it. I also happen to like MPL for > those that don't like BSD. And for me I have some issues with LPGL, but its > not odious to me. Ie its acceptable I think (will have to dig a bit more). > > GPL on the other hand has a place, but is dangerous to use because its viral > and VERY VERY restrictive. It limits future options. And its been discussed > that we license parts LGPL, and parts GPL. And the parts that are GPL wont > need to be linked. That in theory might work, but Im concerned in practice > that we inadvertently label something GPL, that somehow could be linked, or > somehow is linked, or later is refactored to be linked. Now all the LGPL > that links to the GPL is a problem and the LGPL that use the GPL "becomes" > GPL for all intents and purposes....
Warning: flamebait. Using such descriptions of the GPL is only going to result in GPL people getting reeaaalllyy pissed off. First of all, the only restrictions on the GPL (at least v2) are there to protect the freedom of your software. So, naturally lots of commercial companies have problems with it because only free software may link with it (from a GPL compatible license). That's really the only restriction I think you're concerned about. It would explain why the LGPL seems to be an acceptable choice in your book. As for the "LGPL code becomes GPL code thing", No that is not the case. It is _not_ viral, especially in this case. If you link non free-software to GPLed code, you are violating the license and you should stop doing it. But that doesn't mean the code you link to it is GPLed. Besides, in the special case of the LGPL, the LGPL _is_ a free software license, just with a slightly weaker copyleft and it is perfectly acceptable to have them link to each other. There's also the route of using GPL with the classpath exception. This is what the new open source Java uses. > > Corrections welcome.. buts it's the restrictive and viral nature of GPL > that's a problem for me. -- fury long name: William Lahti handle :: fury freenode :: xfury blog :: http://xfurious.blogspot.com/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Still grepping through log files to find problems? Stop. Now Search log events and configuration files using AJAX and a browser. Download your FREE copy of Splunk now >> http://get.splunk.com/ _______________________________________________ SharpOS-Developers mailing list SharpOS-Developers@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/sharpos-developers
