LGPL vs. GPL + Classpath Exception

[Mark Wielaard]

Hi Andy,

On Fri, 2007-06-08 at 09:45 -0700, Wilson, Andrew wrote:
> Yes, history has left FSF with a patchwork of licensing for
> their libraries: LGPL, GPL+runtime, and GPL+classpath.  I have not
> yet seen the "final call" LGPLv3 draft, but FSF still may not be able to
> get to a unified licensing scheme for their libraries going forward.  
> There is expanded verbiage in the previous LGPLv3 draft to address OO
> languages, leading one to infer that FSF may intend to 
> subsume the GPL+classpath usage model into LGPLv3. However,
> GPL+classpath or GPL+runtime 
> are in some ways more permissive than LGPL (e.g., no requirement for 
> allowing reverse engineering), and there may be maintainers and 
> contributors who balk at relicensing from these historic exceptions to
> LGPL.

Yes, you are right that the FSF has been pretty liberal and pragmatic
with using exceptions to the GPL whenever that was in the interest of a
particular community and project. But I don't know if that is something
that needs fixing by trying to subsume them all.
Different communities/projects, different needs.

And since they are all extra permissions on top of a base license (or at
least will be when LGPLv3 will be expressed as GPL + exception) they are
all compatible already anyway since the only thing they do add is extra
permissions. So in that sense you could say they are already unified.

Maybe a standard set of extra permissions would be an nice idea when
GPLv3 comes out. But like you said various groups might just like to
stick with their own set which they have grown to love over the years.

Cheers,

Mark