On Sat, Nov 15, 2008 at 05:22:25PM -0800, Brian Granger wrote: > > I am almost a sympy developer (my recent work has not been merged > yet). I also don't know much about the history Kirr's contributions, > so I apologize if I say anything (unintentionally) to hurt already > sour relations. So...
No problem here. We all do our own first steps some time, and please don't be afraid to hurt me. As to history of contributions - if you are interested, I suggest to run gitk or `git shortlog` and study it. > Like Gael, I have the goal of wanting as many people as possible to be > able to use software that I write. Thus I prefer a BSD-like license. > Then, the only people who then can't use it (essentially) are those > who choose not to. Many developers start from this proposition. While the goal is good (as many people as possible to be able to use software), the way to achieve this (BSD-like license) sometimes does not work. Yes, in the beggining it works very well, but without feedback the original software sometimes stagnates. Many think that "must cooperate" licensing helps development, e.g. please read my original post http://groups.google.com/group/sympy/msg/c405c091076f6cfa and this blog post from 2006 by David A. Wheeler about "why GPL rocketed Linux to success": http://www.dwheeler.com/blog/2006/09/01/#gpl-bsd But also *please* read in my original post that GPL for kernel = LGPL for user splace libraries. > I do think both the GPL and LGPL license are useful in certain contexts. > > Even though they are useful in certain contexts, I think they have a > critical flaw. The flaw is that both the GPL and the LGPL are too > complicated. Why do I say this: > > * I have spent many hours talking with people about the LGPL and GPL > and have read lots about them (including the actual license text), but > I am still not sure exactly how to interpret them. (OK, you may say > that I am not that smart, but...) > > * Many other smart people still have huge disagreements and > misunderstandings about the interpretation of the GPL and LGPL. And > these diff-interpretations are not just symantic in nature (e.g., how > word "freedom" is used). They are substantial and made by equally In LGPL-2.1 the word "freedom" is used only in Preamble section which in legal context serves as introduction only. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/lgpl-2.1.txt And I'm sure it says about "freedom" in the way how fsf understands it: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html > bright people on both sides of the argument. > > * If you have any doubts about their complexity, just read > http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html > > Thus, even if I did want/need the protections of the GPL or LGPL, I am > not sure that I really trust the licenses, because I am not sure of > what they actually say (mean). At least not until all the grey areas > are tested in court, which at this point they haven't been. Yes, legal texts are a tricky area. That's why I propose we first clearly state our intent with the "Fair use of SymPy" before the license text (please read my original post). Another thing is LGPL *is* very widely depolyed and is non-intrusive (e.g. on Linux systems, the _basic_ library GLibc is covered by LGPL, though any software can use and uses it -- Python (BSD), protprietary applications... *any*) And also big advantage of LGPL is that it was tested in real action - in court with success. So if we agree on basic words (Fair use of SymPy) I suggest just to adopt the license which is close in translation to it. > But, one question: > > If sympy becomes LGPL, what license restrictions would my code have if > I subclass sympy.Basic? If you subclass sympy.Basic from your outside-of-sympy code, and sympy is LGPL'ed, in essence your code could be covered by *any* license you like - be it BSD, LGPL, GPL, closed, etc -- any. An example of this are common libraries, e.g. GLibc (LGPL), libgcc (GPL + linking exception), WineLib (LGPL) -- which are used by both open and closed software without _any_ problem. This particular property makes LGPL good to me and to other people -- it does not dictate software users which license to use. This is covered in details in my original post: http://groups.google.com/group/sympy/msg/c405c091076f6cfa Also please read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Lesser_General_Public_License -- Kirill --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sympy" group. To post to this group, send email to sympy@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sympy?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
