Updated license - please comment

Mark Rafn dagon at dagon.net
Wed Jun 18 19:43:42 UTC 2003


On Wed, 18 Jun 2003, Rod Dixon wrote:

> This version seems fine, given what we were told about the license last
> time. I read this license to have the same or similar purpose as the LGPL,
> and in that respect section 2(a) seems permissible. It is a slight
> restriction that could have a strategic purpose, but the author says the
> limitation is consistent with the LGPL and that sounds fine. It might be
> more acceptable if the provision did not impose a mandatory requirement,
> but, instead, used a permissive condition. Still, I do not see the issue
> as an OSD matter.

Am I the only one who thinks 2a and 2d are unacceptible?  It violates
OSD#3 by limiting the type of derived work, perhaps OSD#6 by limiting
itself to creators of software libraries, and perhaps OSD#8 by being
specific to the product "software library".  As far as I can tell, it
prevents anyone from distributing an application that statically links the
library into it (if such an application is a derived work of the library,
at least).

It doesn't even seem close to me.  Let me know if I'm insane, or reading 
it wrong, but I can't see how such a restriction can be considered open 
source.

I know they're straight from the LGPL, but they are irrelevant there
because the LGPL is a pure superset of the GPL (see LGPL section 3),
unlike the license under discussion.

Yes, this indicates that I think the LGPL without section 3 would 
be non-open-source.
--
Mark Rafn    dagon at dagon.net    <http://www.dagon.net/>  
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