On Feb 3, 2008 12:23 PM, Janko Mivšek <janko.mivsek at eranova.si> wrote:

> Jim,
>
> James Robertson wrote:
>
> > You can want to not worry about licenses all you want - but when a
> > lawyer comes knocking at your door with a lawsuit, you might feel
> > differently.  I'm not going to pretend to understand all the issues
> > surrounding the GPL and the LGPL; I don't.  However, I can tell you that
> > corporate entities take license issues very, very seriously.
> >
> > Deciding to ignore a license could easily cost you a sale.
>
> I didn't say to ignore license issues, no, I just said to listen to FSF
>  responses which are clearly more competent than most of us and to
> treat their opinion by spirit, not by letter.


Janko,

I feel your sentiments and particularly if your legal landscape is
significantly different than in the U.S.. However, to me, letter vs spirit
s/b for when it's very hard to be specific and clear. FSF could as Randal
has constructively suggested, unambiguously align the spirit and letter for
this case. What they said was that they "don't have teeth" which allows them
to find teeth in the future. I'm not criticizing them for holding that
option in general - perhaps there are other scenarios in which they would
like to maintain it. It's just not the same as saying "we won't". FWIW, I
think this conversation has moved the marker forward wrt clarifying things
all around.

Cheers,

Laurence

>
>
> And just for intermezzo, not whole world has the same judiciary
> practice, many parts have much more up-to-the-ground way to solve such
> disputes and for those parts the FSF answer is more than adequate, IMO.
>
> Janko
>
>
>
> > On Feb 3, 2008, at 12:09 PM, Janko Mivšek wrote:
> >
> >> Randal L. Schwartz wrote:
> >>
> >>> Paolo> This is exactly what the FSF did *not* say.  They said:
> >>>>> we see no problem with people
> >>>>> studying LGPLed code in order to write a different implementation
> that
> >>>>> does the same thing.  We give people the source, enabling them to
> >>>>> study
> >>>>> it, without requiring them to accept any license.  The LGPL doesn't
> >>>>> have
> >>>>> any requirements for people writing an independent implementation,
> and
> >>>>> that's because it has no teeth it could use to enforce such those
> >>>>> requirements.
> >>> And where is the formal document amending the LGPL to permit this?
> >>> "derived work" is a broad term, and the FSF must specifically waive
> >>> its rights
> >>> to that.  If I *look* at GNU code, then write something similar, that
> is
> >>> arguably "derived work", and therefore subject to GNU licensing.
> >>> I don't see that anything has changed, except that we have an
> >>> "understanding"
> >>> that is not legally binding.
> >>> Let's make it legally binding, and then (only then!) has something
> >>> changed.
> >>> Until then, *DO NOT LOOK AT GST*.
> >>
> >> Randal, please! First, why the heck we as Smalltalkers need to obey by
> >> the word that damn licenses if even FSF hinted clear enough, that it
> >> should be treated LGPL by the spirit, that is by intent and meaning of
> >> the license. And this one is clear enough for me from the FSF answers.
> >> So, Randal, if you'd like help us Smalltalkers, what I believe is your
> >> honest intent, better let us help cooperate without such bloody
> >> lawyer's obstacles.
> >>
> >>
> >> Janko
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --Janko Mivšek
> >> AIDA/Web
> >> Smalltalk Web Application Server
> >> http://www.aidaweb.si
> >>
> >
> >
> >
>
> --
> Janko Mivšek
> AIDA/Web
> Smalltalk Web Application Server
> http://www.aidaweb.si
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/attachments/20080203/35cebad6/attachment.htm