License Committee Report for September 2009

[Giancarlo Niccolai]

In data lunedì 16 novembre 2009 21:47:47, hai scritto:
> Bruce Perens scripsit:
> > In this day of runtime shared libraries, LGPL should not be an issue.
> > Guile, of course, is straight LGPL. No doubt there are others.
> 
> ECL (Embedded Common Lisp) and EEL (Extensible Embeddable Language) both
From ECL license:

PLEASE NOTE THAT:

  This license covers all of the ECL program except for the files
	src/lsp/loop2.lsp	; Symbolic's LOOP macro
	src/lsp/pprint.lsp	; CMUCL's pretty printer
	src/lsp/format.lsp	; CMUCL's format
  and the directories
	contrib/		; User contributed extensions
	src/clx/		; portable CLX library from Telent
  Look the precise copyright of these extensions in the corresponding
  files.


>  Rhino uses MPL+GPL, which gives more or less the same effect.

Fusion of two licenses. A thing we want to avoid.

> Tcl and Elk Scheme use BSD.

From TCL site:

The following terms apply to the all versions of the core Tcl/Tk releases, the 
Tcl/Tk browser plug-in version 2.0, and TclBlend and Jacl version 1.0. Please 
note that the TclPro tools are under a different license agreement. This 
agreement is part of the standard Tcl/Tk distribution as the file named 
"license.terms". 

ELK uses a pure BSD license; as noticed in previous mail, this is a bit too 
simple licensing scheme for our needs. (Still, no LGPL nor GPL).


About EEL....
""""
EEL Licensing
Free/Open Source Software

EEL is completely Free/Open Source. All source code is available under the 
terms of the GNU LGPL.

Simplified, this means that EEL may be used in commercial closed source 
products as well as Free software. There is no license fee, no royalties and 
no restrictions upon the licensing terms of software that uses EEL.

The only restriction is that if you modify EEL itself, you must make the 
modified source code available under the terms of the LGPL.

NOTE: BSD, X11/MIT or a similar license is under consideration as an 
alternative to the LGPL. 
"""

Well, this all is a personal opinion of the author about LGPL effect, which 
IMHO is a bit simplified and incorrect. Also, he seems to be a bit unhappy with 
LGPL (still too restrictive). As in our case.


===

And we're back on my claim that, to go open-source BUT interface with the 
commercial world, you need either a bsd-like license where you drop opening of 
the core software, or some sort of dual licensing AND/OR home made exception, 
AND/OR special per-customer grants.

Bests, Giancarlo.