At 08:11 AM 2/9/2002, J.Brown (Ender/Amigo) wrote:
John Carmack made an intresting point, he releases ID softwares older releases under the GPL. Why? Because after originally releasing an engine after a BSD-esque license, a project done some very major work to the engine... and then lost it in a harddrive crash. So his -main- reason for using the GPL is to prevent work done in the community from being lost.
He really should take the time to back up his drives. ;-) But, assuming that he wishes to use this rather unusual backup mechanism, why would the GPL be any better at this than a BSD-style license?
There are of course other points. The LGPL is the GPL without the restrictions which prevent useful commercial use.
Alas, this is not true. The latest version of the LGPL -- which RMS dubs the "Lesser GPL" -- imposes many restrictions which make commercial use difficult if not impossible. For example, it requires that software including the library be provided not just as a finished product but as a series of object files which can be lined with a newer version of the library. Not only is this a maintenance and logistics nightmare; because it exposes the symbol tables, it makes reverse engineering of the code trivial. This is by design.
--Brett Glass