LGPL clarification

[Frank Hecker]

kmself at ix.netcom.com wrote:
> I'd be interested in seeing a discussion of the relative merits of a
> BSD/GPL dual license for cases like this.  The rationale is as follows.
<rationale omitted>
> This is an idea I've been rolling around for a while, there are a couple
> of possible holes in it, but I'd be interested in seeing a read from
> others.

I am sympathetic to your reasoning here; this is essentially the same
reasoning that's led a number of projects (Mozilla, OpenOffice, etc.) to
adopt or look at adopting dual license schemes with the GPL (or LGPL) as
one of the alternative licenses.

However I should note that dual license schemes in and of themselves are
not with their own issues and ambiguities; even if these issues can be
resolved and ambiguities clarified to most people's satisfaction, there
still might be enough dissenting voices to lend an air of uncertainty
around the licensing arrangements, uncertainty that might deter adoption
of the software in some commercial contexts.

I think to a large part dual licensing is intended to address a gap in
the overall open source licensing picture: the lack of a well-known and
universally usable open source license that promotes code sharing within
the scope of the original software and modifications to it, allows
combination with proprietary code above or below it in the software
"stack", and is acknowledged as GPL-compatible by RMS and the FSF (or,
failing that, is not claimed to be GPL-incompatible by RMS and the FSF).
The LGPL has issues as previously described, and the Mozilla Public
License (which otherwise fulfills the above conditions) is claimed by
RMS and the FSF to be incompatible with the GPL. 

However if it were possible to create such a license and have it be
generally accepted, I think it could greatly reduce the perceived need
for dual licensing, at least for new projects.

Frank
-- 
Frank Hecker            work: http://www.collab.net/
frank at collab.net        home: http://www.hecker.org/