Re: [SLUG] Which open source license is best

[Felix Sheldon]

Ken Foskey wrote:
"BSD is the only true Open Source license."  This is an interesting
quote from an idiot.  But I would really like to here other opinions on
this.
 

Maybe it is the "one true OS license", but maybe we don't actually need 
or want a 'true OS license' in every case.

I know there are thousands of licenses I would like to classify them:
a) BSD like - use how you want includes Public Domain.
b) LGPL like - for libraries.
c) GPL like - can never be used in conjunction with closed programs.
d) Corporate - pay for use in many forms - includes shareware.
 

There are many ways to use code, at runtime, linking, directly copying 
in full or just taking bits of it. I think the Free software licenses 
are not so much about what you can and can't do, just that you must 
*always* provide source to anyone else who will 'use' (by normal 
execution) a work incorporating it.

Where GPL and LGPL differ is the definition of 'a work incorporating 
it', such that software which just calls the existing LGPL code at 
runtime is not counted as 'incorporating' it, so is not covered by the 
requirement to provide source.

For the record.  I believe that LGPL is the only true Open Source
license.
a)  It allows me as a professional programmer to use it anywhere I want.
 

Yeah, but the 'use' you have here may not be not the same as 'use' in 
all the cases above.

b) It obligates the me as a professional programmer to release any
patches back to the community.  The moral clause it you like.
Personally, I'd like to encourage as much open source development as 
possible, so I'd go with pure GPL for any library code I might want to 
release.

Please play nice!
 

My take on it is that anyone is free to use GPL code for whatever they 
wish. If they want to give it to someone else, it's not them using it 
anymore, it's the recipient. Thanks to the GPL, the recipient can then 
do whatever they like with it too. There is no point where someone is 
'not allowed' to do something with the source.

Felix
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