Optimal license for Java projects ...

[John Cowan]

Gunther Schadow scripsit:

> Specifically what is the practical difference between LGPL and MPL?

A bit of personal history here:  when ESR was going to Netscape to discuss
with them what license to free Mozilla under, I advised him to advise them
to avoid the LGPL.  The distinction between a work based on the Program
(which must be GPL or LGPL) and a work that merely uses the Program is
straightforward in easy cases, but I am less than convinced that the LGPL
really pins down the distinction.  How many non-Java programmers actually
release the proprietary parts of their programs in linkable form, as the
LGPL demands, so that the LGPLed part can be replaced simply by relinking?
)@#$ few, I bet.

The MPL makes use of the notion of "files" to clearly distinguish between
the MPLed code (changes to which must be under the MPL) and everything else.

The LGPL does, however, have the option of conversion to the GPL: in effect,
all LGPL code is dual-licensed under the LGPL and the GPL.

> Is there any case law regarding open source licenses that
> had been contested?

Not so far as anybody knows.  Eben Moglen does enforce the GPL out of court
all the time, though.

-- 
John Cowan   jcowan at reutershealth.com  http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Most languages are dramatically underdescribed, and at least one is 
dramatically overdescribed.  Still other languages are simultaneously 
overdescribed and underdescribed.  Welsh pertains to the third category.
     
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