What's the difference between OSL and LGPL?

[Lawrence Rosen]

Read the explanation of the OSL. It differs from the LGPL. See the link at
the bottom of this: http://opensource.org/licenses/osl-3.0.php 

/Larry


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Remco [mailto:remco47 at gmail.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2008 2:07 PM
> To: license-discuss at opensource.org
> Subject: What's the difference between OSL and LGPL?
> 
> Someone wants to release a project under the GPL, but he can't because
> the project uses Qt and CUDA. CUDA is a proprietary library, so
> release under plain GPL would be impossible. However, GPL with a
> special exception for CUDA would be possible. But the license of Qt
> does not allow such an exception. Qt does however allow a few other
> licenses as exceptions, such as the OSL and LGPL. Both could be used
> for the project instead of the GPL.
> 
> Now, what's the difference between OSL and LGPL? Both allow code that
> is linked to have another license. And both require the release of
> source code under the same license for the code that is on "this side"
> of the link. Both require a patent grant from authors.
> 
> So what's the use of the OSL? LGPL is a more popular license, so the
> OSL would have to do something fundamentally different for it to be
> used. Otherwise there would be license proliferation.
> 
> Remco