On Wed, 12 Sep 2001, Frank Hecker wrote:
>
> Ian Hickson wrote:
>> Why do we care about LGPL projects and not, say, projects using the
>> original BSD license, the Apache license, the Zope license, the IBM public
>> license, the Qt public license, the Sun Industry Standards Source License,
>> etc, etc, etc?
>
> Because nobody has ever claimed that the BSD license, etc., are
> "incompatible" with the MPL.
"The BSD license, etc., are "incompatible" with the MPL." (In that you
cannot cut and paste from one to the other, not in that you cannot link
code from one with another.)
> My point is very simple: The FSF claims (for whatever reason) that the
> MPL is "incompatible" with the GPL, and that therefore special
> accomodations have to be made in the Mozilla licensing scheme in order
> to permit people to use Mozilla code in GPLed applications without
> violating the GPL terms.
Yes. This is the difference between strong copyleft and weak copyleft --
the MPL can be used in proprietary programs, which the GPL cannot, and the
main way in which the GPL protects itself from such use is by making it
illegal to use non-GPL code (potentially proprietary code) together with
GPL code. Since the MPL is not the GPL, you cannot link them together.
This does not apply to the LGPL.
> OK. So then I say in turn that if the MPL is "incompatible" with the GPL
> then it must be "incompatible" with the LGPL as well [...].
This doesn't follow. The GPL and LGPL are totally different licenses.
>> For that matter, why do we want to promote _any_ non-strong-copyleft
>> projects, other than Mozilla itself?
>
> This has nothing to do with promoting a particular philosophy of
> software licensing.
Maybe for you; for me that is a very important consideration.
> It has everything to do with permitting Mozilla code
> to be used in as many different projects as possible, regardless of what
> licenses are being used for those projects' code.
If that is really the truth, then why are we not putting the Mozilla
source into the public domain? (Seriously.)
--
Ian Hickson )\ _. - ._.) fL
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