Re: AdaCore ... the Next SCO?

[M E Leypold <development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVETHIS@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de>]

"Hyman Rosen" <hyman.rosen@gmail.com> writes:

> M E Leypold wrote:
> > I say: Nonsense.
> 
> For GPLv3, the FSF is planning to roll the LGPL into the GPL,
> using the new GPL's ability to add extra permission clauses.
> 
> Here's a quote from Stallman (copied from Groklaw):

<rest snipped>

Hi Hyman,

Yes, I've read the Interview at Groklaw. I've the following things to
remark:


 (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.


 (2) I think, that this direction on part of the FSF is a bad
     move. What will come from that is, that we'll see more and more
     software where the LGPL has been converted to GPL (not to give
     the end user more freedom, but to poison tools for commercial use
     and introduce a dual licensing scheme). Imagine Linux
     distributions with LibC under GPL, and you can only get the LGPL
     version if you buy support for the enterprise edition.


 (3) I think that allowing anyone to redistribute without linking
     exception will emphasize the viral nature of GPL and won't do
     FLOSS much good. 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.

     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. 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).


 (4) As far as GtkAda (2.4.0) and Florist are concerned: Their license
     is still GMGPL based on GPL 2. So it is still open, wether the
     linking exception can be stripped from source you don't own. (As
     a reference: You can't convert LGPL 2 to GPL, that much is
     certain in my eyes).


Regards -- Markus