From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FORGED_GMAIL_RCVD, FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,d0f6c37e3c1b712a X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news2.google.com!postnews.google.com!m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail From: "Hyman Rosen" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: AdaCore ... the Next SCO? Date: 17 Jul 2006 13:13:44 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: <1153167224.590828.32290@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com> References: <1151405920.523542.137920@p79g2000cwp.googlegroups.com> <1151434144.2179.36.camel@localhost> <1151965334.709372.227600@a14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <3Ryqg.368$Rk2.140@trndny04> <1152882713.304794.267470@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> <34r70ox8kc.fsf@hod.lan.m-e-leypold.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.253.248.208 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" X-Trace: posting.google.com 1153167230 4470 127.0.0.1 (17 Jul 2006 20:13:50 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 20:13:50 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: G2/0.2 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.4) Gecko/20060508 Firefox/1.5.0.4,gzip(gfe),gzip(gfe) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com; posting-host=204.253.248.208; posting-account=lJDDWg0AAACmMd7wLM4osx8JUCDw_C_j Xref: g2news2.google.com comp.lang.ada:5741 Date: 2006-07-17T13:13:44-07:00 List-Id: M E Leypold wrote: > (1) Your hypothesis (somewhere earlier in this thread) was, that the > the GMGPL linking exception is contradicting the GPL, i.e. one > can't redistribute with the exception clause intact. The > interview has no bearing on that. True. It's not even a hypothesis, really. I just wanted to point out that the plain text of the license in the file could be read in the way I described. It's certainly an affirmative defense against people who say that you must not strip the exception from the license. > (2) I think, that this direction on part of the FSF is a bad move. Notice that this is not at all a change in direction, merely a clarification of policies that have always been in place. Notice that these exemptions can always eventually lead to a user who is denied the ability to read, modify, and redistribute a program. > won't do FLOSS much good Again, remember that the goal of the FSF is that when a user receives a piece of software, he may execute, read, modify, and redistribute it. The FSF does not care for the "good of FLOSS" except as regards these four freedoms. Anything which facilitates the creation of software which does not come with these freedoms is bad, not good. The LGPL exists because sometimes this bad thing is a lesser evil, but the FSF isn't particulary happy about it. For the most part, the FSF prefers no software to non-free software. The LGPL is for cases where they fear non-free alternatives may become popular if there is no open version that can be used selfishly. > After all, if I don't want somebody to strip the > linking exception from my code, I'll have to avoid the GPL in > future, since I cannot add a non-removable exception to GPL 3. Or just dual-license, the way many other packages do. > Furthermore it would be annoying, if, a business adds improved to > a library under LGPL. Then a competitor adds more improvements > and strips the linking exception. The first company can now only > continue to use the non improved version. Annoying to whom? Is there a user who loses any of the four freedoms when this happens? If not, the FSF doesn't care. Is the first company hampered by being unable to use improvements without distributing under the GPL? Good. More freedom for users. > Somehow that seems to > me a break of the implied "sharing contract" -- I'd expect other > people to add under the same conditions (so that I can also > profit from their improvements, not introducing different rules > that exclude application areas for earlier contributors). What you are describing is a cartel whose members collude for their mutual benefit and to the detriment of their users, who may be denied the four freedoms. You really must learn to separate your needs and desires as a programmer from the four freedoms that the FSF wants users to have. The purpose of the extra conditions is to avoid having to distribute a program under the GPL. The main goal of avoiding the GPL is generally to deny users the freedoms it would grant. > (As a reference: You can't convert LGPL 2 to GPL, that much is > certain in my eyes). Have you read the LGPL? 3. You may opt to apply the terms of the ordinary GNU General Public License instead of this License to a given copy of the Library. To do this, you must alter all the notices that refer to this License, so that they refer to the ordinary GNU General Public License, version 2, instead of to this License. (If a newer version than version 2 of the ordinary GNU General Public License has appeared, then you can specify that version instead if you wish.) Do not make any other change in these notices. Once this change is made in a given copy, it is irreversible for that copy, so the ordinary GNU General Public License applies to all subsequent copies and derivative works made from that copy.