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.

(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.

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.