On Tue, Mar 07, 2006 at 05:18:12PM +0100, Philippe Laporte wrote: > Hi, > Why did Classpath ever go with that esoteric linking exception > instead of simple LGPL? > > I can think of several reasons, but "I wanna know God's thoughts, the > rest are details"...just kidding :-)
Because the LGPL can be (seen as) too restrictive for some usage scenarios (ahead of time compilation to native code with a single statically linked binary consisting of both the library and your code). We don't want GNU Classpath to be less suited for such scenarios compared to alternatives, so it has the most permissive form of the GPL-style copyleft licenses. As for esoteric, gcc has had parts licensed under GPL+linking exception since early 90s, afaik. It's not exactly a type of license the FSF promotes, since it doesn't offer the strong encouragement to contribute to the free software development efforts that GPL offers, for example, but it's there for areas where it makes sense to use it, like GNU Classpath. cheers, dalibor topic > Best Regards, > > -- > Philippe Laporte > Software > > Gatespace Telematics > F?rsta L?nggatan 18 > 41328 G?teborg > Sweden > Phone: +46 702 04 35 11 > Fax: +46 31 24 16 50 > Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >
