On 2001.12.18 05:09 Patrik Stridvall wrote: [snip]
Dimitrie O. Paun wrote:
Stop for a movement and tell me: are you against the letter or the spirit of the LGPL.
Asking that question is like asking whether I support the spirit of Communism: "From each according to his abilities - to each according
to his needs."
Well, it sound nice doesn't it? However doing a little
deeper analysis
I realize that the price for being able to do this is not
worth paying.
Note however that I'm not equating GPL or LGPL with Communism. It was just an example from real life, that you get more that you wish for. See below.
[snip]
That's a piss poor example. The statement that something would be from each according to his abilities and to each according to his needs sounds to me at first glance like it would suck. And you don't have to dig too deeply to figure out why that would suck. But maybe that's because I am an American capitalist though and through and that blatantly conflicts with my core values that everyone should do for themselves.
Perhaps. However, I think that if you move to Europe, especially northern Europe you will find that people have different opinions.
While most people there certainly do not believe in Communism and to various degrees understand why is doesn't work, people are more inclined to be believe in this principle.
Actually I think the reason for this is more Protestant Christianity than Communism, but why is not really that important.
And to get off topic, why is that? Because that's what everybody will do anyway, might as well work with that rather than pretend that it is otherwise.
So there is no such thing as morality?
This has lead me to another thought. We cannot pretend that people are going to release code back to Wine under the X11 license. However we can realize the obviousness of the truth that given the chance people will take whatever they can and give back nothing in return. Some folks will give back because it may make more sense to do so than to not. But some folks will be more than happy to take the whole codebase for their own good and provide nothing in return.
We need to stop living in the dream world that everyone who uses Wine will contribute back.
I have no illusions that everybody will. However there is no need to scare away potentially good companies by using a hard to understand license.
Yes, it is true that Corel, Codeweavers, TransGaming, etc. have given a lot to Wine. None of them was or is required to give anything.
And yet they did. That is kind of shocking for an American Capitalist, isn't it? :-)
If the goal is to let people know that if they want to use Wine then they need to contribute back, then the only choice is to put that into the license. By "use" I am obviously not referring to simply porting an application using Winelib. I am referring to incorporating source code from wine into their own products.
This is exactly what the LGPL was meant to address.
And if they borrow some obscure functions, they might even supply some bugfixes in hope that at a later stage there will be more bugfixes waiting for them when they borrow again (resync) a year later. And if they don't, who has been hurt?
If Wine was LGPL:ed they certainly wouldn't have borrowed at all, so no chance at all of getting any bugfixes back at all.
I recall Uwe's usual .sig which is: Free Software: if you contribute nothing, expect nothing.
Indeed and what is your hypotetical sig? "LGPL:ed Software: if you contributed something, use the law as a tool to force others to contribute as well."
Maybe we should have one for wine: Wine: If you contribute nothing, well, there isn't shit we can do about it since we are X11 licensed.
I don't think that one came out the way you hoped. Try again.
-
Patrik Stridvall