Roland (roland@netquant.com.br) writes:
To write it again we have two interests:
- People who want to make money selling WINE or derivates == anti xGPL
- People who contribute for free or have another business model than the
above == pro xGPL
There are a few more categories who would not want the (L)GPL:
3. Professional programmers who would like to fix bugs (if the code is (L)GPLed, they can't without becoming "tainted" by having read the code);
4. Anyone who objects to viral licenses or the FSF's misleading propaganda;
5. Users who want to be able to buy a commercial product with professional support, especially good integration, and possibly enhanced features;
6. Anyone who does not want to see WINE fork into truly free and FSF-licensed versions; and
7. Anyone who cares, on principle, about software freedom and choice.
--Brett Glass
Okay. Let's look at this.
The main objections seem to be based off two debatible premises:
a) LGPL will stop commercial development b) FSF
I personally do not agree with most of RMS's arguments, but I DO implicitly agree with the GPL philosophy. There are several reasons I agree with it, which I will list below. Please, just because you hate the FSF, there is no reason not to accept the license they use. Using the LGPL does not give the FSF -any- control over Wine. Even less if you do not give a "or any later version" clause.
Also the fact that LGPL will stop commercial development is a false assumption. WINE is the main application. Wine uses several LGPL libraries. If the main Wine executable is still BSD licensed, you can replace the LGPLed libraries with your commercial version. Etc, etc.
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.
There are of course other points. The LGPL is the GPL without the restrictions which prevent useful commercial use. Thus RMS complains it isn't real "open-source"... Neither the LGPL or GPL prevents charging for software, but as the source is open few people would buy a product they can compile themselves. This is true.
No license on earth will satisfy everyone. But the LGPL is not fundementally evil. IMHO, any commercial developer that doesn't understand the LGPL license, nor how to use it to his advantage, in my opinion has no buisness coding on a Linux/unix platform...
Regards, | It's always bad news in computing.. and beware | of anything claming to be good news - because | its probably a virus. - Salmon Days Ender | (James Brown) | [Nehahra, EasyCuts, PureLS, www.QuakeSrc.org]
On Fri, 8 Feb 2002, Brett Glass wrote:
Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2002 12:07:59 -0700 From: Brett Glass brett@lariat.org To: wine-devel@winehq.com Subject: Re: Wine license change
Roland (roland@netquant.com.br) writes:
To write it again we have two interests:
- People who want to make money selling WINE or derivates == anti xGPL
- People who contribute for free or have another business model than the
above == pro xGPL
There are a few more categories who would not want the (L)GPL:
- Professional programmers who would like to fix bugs (if the
code is (L)GPLed, they can't without becoming "tainted" by having read the code);
- Anyone who objects to viral licenses or the FSF's misleading
propaganda;
- Users who want to be able to buy a commercial product with
professional support, especially good integration, and possibly enhanced features;
- Anyone who does not want to see WINE fork into truly free and
FSF-licensed versions; and
- Anyone who cares, on principle, about software freedom and
choice.
--Brett Glass
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
On Sat, 9 Feb 2002, Brett Glass wrote:
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?
You are a troll, right? That arrived thru that Slashdot posting, right?
I'm not going to lower myself to stating the obvious.
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.
Go back and read the license again, then read up on shared libraries.
Finally, come back here and apologise for your trolling and FUDing.
/Fredrik
On 2002.02.09 15:55 Brett Glass wrote:
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?
Yeah, i didn't quite get that argument either.
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.
Yes, the purpose of LGPL is to force proprietary components to be in seperate relinkable object files. Again, this is not new information-- just like saying the FSF is trying to keep people out of the proprietary software business is not new information.
The only symbols you'll have to export from these proprietary objects will be the exports, I'm sure you could come up with a way to make sure the internal symbols don't get shown to the world since you are such a great proprietary software developer.
And don't be concerned about looking at LGPL code either. I too develop proprietary software and I develop some of that software using free (LGPL) libraries. There is nothing preventing me from looking at the source to these libraries I am using. I am not infected with the (L)GPL and thus unable to write proprietary software.
So far in every case (well, actually settlement) involving the GPL it has been a very clear violation of somebody linking their software with GPL software, or knowingly incorporating GPLed code into a product. That is clearly not allowed by the GPL. However linking LGPL components with proprietary components /is/ allowed so long as you provide a way to continue to modify the LGPL components and relink them with the proprietary components. This is, in effect, the stated purpose of the LGPL. Why is this so hard for you to understand?
-Dave
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Brett Glass -
David Elliott -
Fredrik Ohrn -
J.Brown (Ender/Amigo)