From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 13442 invoked by alias); 20 Oct 2003 23:28:29 -0000 Mailing-List: contact pthreads-win32-help@sources.redhat.com; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: pthreads-win32-owner@sources.redhat.com Received: (qmail 13373 invoked from network); 20 Oct 2003 23:28:27 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO murray.nsw.cmis.CSIRO.AU) (130.155.16.3) by sources.redhat.com with SMTP; 20 Oct 2003 23:28:27 -0000 Received: from darkside-nh.nsw.cmis.csiro.au (darkside-nh.nsw.cmis.CSIRO.AU [130.155.23.99]) by murray.nsw.cmis.CSIRO.AU (Postfix) with ESMTP id 54D65C7 for ; Tue, 21 Oct 2003 09:28:25 +1000 (EST) Received: from darkside-nh.nsw.cmis.csiro.au (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by darkside-nh.nsw.cmis.csiro.au (8.12.8/8.12.8) with ESMTP id h9KNSPGd017348 for ; Tue, 21 Oct 2003 09:28:25 +1000 Received: from darkside-nh.nsw.cmis.csiro.au (talbot@localhost) by darkside-nh.nsw.cmis.csiro.au (8.12.8/8.12.8/Submit) with ESMTP id h9KNSO0D017343 for ; Tue, 21 Oct 2003 09:28:25 +1000 Message-Id: <200310202328.h9KNSO0D017343@darkside-nh.nsw.cmis.csiro.au> To: pthreads-win32@sources.redhat.com Subject: Re: License wars In-reply-to: Your message of Mon, 20 Oct 2003 17:01:04 +0200. X-URL: http://www.cmis.csiro.au/Hugues.Talbot Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 23:28:00 -0000 From: Hugues Talbot X-SW-Source: 2003/txt/msg00116.txt.bz2 Dear Alexander, There is no point in getting angry like that. What you call `collective work' is not what the FSF defines as collective, the LGPL lumps a great deal under the term `derivative work'. That term has not been tested in court with respect to the LGPL so there is no certainty about who is right, you or the FSF laywers. Straight logic does not apply necessarily in court decisions. A lot of people may not like it but that's the way it is. Whether or not the FSF has a leg to stand on is open to debate but this is not the point. Yes I agree with you that the LGPL restricts more than the CPL or the BSD or the Mozilla license, that much is obvious. My point is that the LGPL is a strong license which may not be as business-friendly as other licenses, but it does have some bite. My impression is that the CPL is unenforceable whereas the LGPL has been enforced successfully several times already. Most recently there was a article in Forbes magazine about it. It's a bit like patents. There is zero point in taking a patent if you are not willing to go to court to defend it. Same here. If you are quite prepared for anybody to do anything they want with your code then the choice of license does not matter. If you want to defend your code against exploitation then as an individual or a collection of individuals with little means there is little choice, and the CPL is probably not one of them, although I would welcome news to the contrary. Note that the BSD license is very business-friendly and has been actually court-tested successfully, something the (L)GPL cannot claim. However as you know the BSD license protects little. Finally if the copyright holders of the pthread-win32 library decide the LGPL is unacceptable they can change it, but this is not for me or you to have the last word. If you are trying to have a constructive debate about this treating people like idiots is not the way to go. -------- Hugues Talbot, CSIRO Mathematical & Information Sciences Locked Bag 17, Building E6B, Macquarie University North Ryde NSW 2113 Australia Ph: 61 2 9325 3208 Fax: 61 2 9325 3200 63% of all statistics are made up on the spot.