On Tue, Aug 09, 2005 at 10:21:15PM +0200, Andreas Aardal Hanssen wrote: > My point, for Binc IMAP, is that the GPL does not allow companies > to write backends for the server and distribute that backend (or > the whole modified product) in binary form, and that's regardless > of how well defined our API is. And I'd like for them to be able to > do that.
OpenSC (OpenSSL, Linux, ...) solves this with dynamic libraries that export a predefined set of functions. That way Binc is distributed as-is, without modifications. And a .so library can still be loaded to get added functionality. > PS: This is why GTK and KDElibs are LGPL, and why Qt is GPL with an > exception that allows linking against other libraries. Believe me, > if these libs could have been pure-GPL licensed then they probably > would have been. One big difference between all of those libraries and Binc is that the libs are just that, libraries, and Binc is a complete product. Technically that doesn't stop Binc from being LGPL:ed, but I think it feels a little backwards.. //Peter
