Squeak and LGPL

James Robertson jarober at gmail.com
Sun Feb 3 17:15:16 UTC 2008


Janko,

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.

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
>




More information about the Squeak-dev mailing list