Bijan Parsia bparsia@email.unc.edu wrote:
On Tue, 30 Oct 2001, Lex Spoon wrote:
[snip]
Okay, I was a bit terse, and it *is* relevant. I just didn't relish the thought of the inevitable 50+ messages hashing out the subtle differences between these licenses. :(
How about the misuse of the word "commercial". "Proprietory" == "commerical". If you think that *de facto*, forbidding proprietoriness eliminates commerical potential, that's *still* a different thing.
I might have chosen a bad word initially - I should have used "proprietary" or "closed source" since there is absolutely nothing in GPL/LGPL that says anything about commerce, I used the wrong word. Heck, I could sell a GPL program for 1000$ if someone is "stupid" enough to pay for it.
The point I was (if I can rephrase it) trying to make is that GPL is viral and LGPL is not (a bit simplified), which means that I can develop a closed proprietary program that uses a LGPLd library and my code won't "catch the GPL virus". What license I can then use for the resulting executable (or the source of my app I guess) is totally up to me.
If I on the other hand modify the LGPLd library and redistributes the modified version I would have to play by the LGPL rules which are quite similar to GPL.
(Ok, there are tons of minor aspects here but I think this is the gist of it)
(Contrast with the VisualWorks Non-commercial licence, which *explicitly* forbids commerical activity. Rather generally. Last I checked, it looked like even non-profits got swept in.)
[snip]
Otherwise, LGPL and GPL are pretty similar, and perhaps even identical. For example, they both disallow commercial use of the software.
And this is even more bogas. At best, the only *use* that might be constraint is selling derivative works. Using a GPLed word processor to churn out commerical books is clearly fine on *any* level (even without the tendentioius connection to proprietoriness.
And again, selling is actually totally OK with GPL. :-) You can sell a derivative work - it's just that you have to also distribute the source - so it might be hard to get people to pay A LOT for it.
Yes... I see that you also note that below...
To be explicit, from, http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLCommertially:
"If I use a piece of software that has been obtained under the GNU GPL, am I allowed to modify the original code into a new program, then distribute and sell that new program commercially? You are allowed to sell copies of the modified program commercially, but only under the terms of the GNU GPL. Thus, for instance, you must make the source code available to the users of the program as described in the GPL, and they must be allowed to redistribute and modify it as described in the GPL."
Having a licence that, in a certain situation, makes using (or selling) the product commercially *infeasible* is very distinct from a licence that forbids commerical *use*.
But *please* let's not blow this up. :) I'm perfectly willing to concede that loads of buisness might not be able to sell GPLed software for a variety of reasons. But they certainly can use it in a variety of ways, and neither license explicitly forbids, in general, commerical use.
Terseness isn't the issue; accuracy is.
Cheers, Bijan Parsia.
Well, even if there are a bunch of interesting points with GPL/LGPL (forcing contributions, levelling the playfield for commercial entities etc) sometimes it just feels so much SIMPLER to go with a BSD/MIT style, don't you think? :-)
Cheers too!
regards, Göran
PS. One interesting aspect mostly forgotten is the fact that quite a few companies in the Linux arena seems to like the GPL since it sortof levels the field. Company A can release improvements to the GPLd product Z without running the risk of having company B grabbing it all closing it up and selling it without openly contributing further. DS
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