On Fri, 15 Feb 2002, Patrik Stridvall wrote:
Still think that after reading my reply to Jeremy?
Yes, I do.
Listen Patrik, in the past you seemed to be a reasonable person. Now you are indistingushible from a troll. Really. It seems that whatever is argued, you have a psychotic tendency to invent a counter-argument, no matter how silly it is.
Yes, I'm quite aware that some people consider my tendency of almost never giving up irritating. :-)
But what do you expect me to do when I have a feeling that going to LGPL is a terrible mistake?
If you don't understand it if I explain it one way, perhaps you will if I explain it another way, of course often I hope invain...
Now, that fun sometimes, but it has gone too long, too often in this bitter thread. For this very reason I have avoided to argue with you, but I will make this one exception, since the thread has progressed past useful long time ago.
If you have made up your mind you have, but I'm arguing for people that haven't.
Very true and this significantly weakens any "protection" that the LGPL offers.
Which is a feature, and which should silence all reasonable BSD supporters.
BSD has the same feature so when comparing pros and cons this certainly doesn't weight in favour LGPL.
The ones that are left, simply ignore this very important FACT (It's emphesised since I don't want to argue it, let's assume it for the purpose of this discussion).
Their is nothing to argue, BSD has the same feature.
Obviously we should concerntrate on the relative pros and cons.
Perhaps, but at a terrible price. Read my reply to Jeremy.
Crap. What terrible price, WTF are you guys smoking, 'cause I want some of it! Once again: Wine is isomorphous to a Linux distribution. They are growing MUCH faster than Wine ever did. They have a lot of commercial backers.
No Wine is not isomorphous to a Linux distribution. Wine will be an essential part of EXISTING Linux distribution. Sure there might be a market for new specialized ones like Lindows but don't have to large hopes.
I'm sure there will be Linux distributions willing to offer proprietary extension to Wine if some company offers it.
There is nothing strange about that, some distributions already bundle proprietary applications.
Stop this stupid, idiotic, "LGPL will kill all business" argument.
I have never said, that LGPL will kill all business models, now you are claiming things I never said. There are some people, none named, none forgotten in the BSD camp that he made similar claims, but please don't make me guilty by association.
I have said that it will limit the possible business models severly. For example read Gavriels first reply or for that matter read my last reply to Jeremy again.
Since the LGPL removes the work protection that the work have from copyright, it is almost essential that you get assurances that you get paid before doing the work. This is in most markets called contracting.
Somehow you seem to believe that all reasonable business models will strictly following DLL boundaries, but you have given. absolutely no proof of this, you just assume it.
Patrick, you are incorrigible. Yes, our purpose in choosing a license is not to support as many business models as possible. No. It is to find a licence that _overall_ is best for Wine.
My point is that since the Microsoft DLL in general have no clear design the LGPL will articially for no good reason prevent some business models that you otherwise have been possible.
This means that Microsoft arbitrary choices will prevent many otherwise possible business models. Is that good?
Of course this requires that Alexandres analysis of the LGPL is correct, if he is not, you will lose most of the rest of the protection that the LGPL might provides.
In that case you will have Wine under a close to meaningless license that will potentially scare away people not wishing to try their luck in court.
Now, we all agree that some commercial involvment is good. The question is, how much? All possible one? Like everything is life, the answer must lie in the middle, not at axtreme.
Obviously. I have never claimed anything else.
So we must sacrifice a few business models to benefit Wine. It's just fare. An LGPL licence will keep most of them still viable (such as TransGaming, for example). WTF is your problem with it?
My biggest problem is that because of way Microsoft have designed the Windows the sacrifice will be complete arbitrary.
I'm not entirely against some sort of "copyleft", that is why I in my debate with David Elliot proposed that we could possibly have a license that makes it clear that linking to proprietry libraries are allowed. Possible we could add some paragraph about that the functionality must be a seperate part of DLL in some way.
I don't really like it, but you were speaking about compromises....