Encouraging contributions isn't usually a motivation to switch to LGPL. The writers of proprietary software will generally keep the most useful functionality in their application code (rather than in your library) and will contribute as little as possible.
A permissive licence (such as the LGPL) can be good if you want your application to define an open standard. For example, the Ogg Vorbis library for playing that audio format is under a very permissive licence because the goal is to make Ogg a widely used standard (so that free software developers can work with an open, patent-free standard instead of the possibly patented mp3 format). The LGPL can also be good if you think that your field will naturally be dominated by a single software package and you think you might loose a head-to-head competition with some proprietary rival. This is the case for the GNU standard C library (glibc). It makes technical sense for all GNU/Linux operating systems to use the same libc, and if the developers of proprietary software for GNU/Linux wanted to write their own libc, they probably could. So to ensure that they don't feel a need to do that, glibc was released under the LGPL. So unless you find yourself in either of those rare situations, then it's probably best to stay with the GPL. You've probably read this, but just in case: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html Hope that helps. P.S. This mailing list has lots of trolls. Please ignore inflammatory emails. -- Ciarán O'Riordan, +32 477 36 44 19, http://ciaran.compsoc.com/ Support free software, join FSFE's Fellowship: http://fsfe.org Recent blog entries: http://fsfe.org/en/fellows/ciaran/ciaran_s_free_software_notes/using_latex_to_make_pdf_documents_with_japanese_characters http://fsfe.org/en/fellows/ciaran/ciaran_s_free_software_notes/links_sean_daly_kde_swpat_chessboxing http://fsfe.org/en/fellows/ciaran/ciaran_s_free_software_notes/links_india_pats_clipperz_freegis_rms_emacs http://fsfe.org/en/fellows/ciaran/ciaran_s_free_software_notes/using_and_writing_emacs_22_input_methods _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
