> Brian email: do you mean that it is difficult to understand legal > wording? Hm, yes, legal texts are difficult, but LGPL is with us for > ~ 15 years already, and I personally always thought that there is a > clear traction of it, e.g. as written here: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Lesser_General_Public_License
No I don't mean that. While some legal documents are difficult to understand because of legal jargon, that is not the main problem I have with the GPL/LGPL. The problem is that their *interpretation* is complex. A few examples: * In a previous email you gave an example (the 2 physicists) intending to show how the LGPL would provide certain kinds of protections. Yet, as pointed out, the LGPL doesn't provide the protections you said it would. In my mind, this shows that the LGPL is sufficiently complex that even people who advocate for it can't keep it straight what it actually says. I know, you will probably counter and say that this was a bad/careless example, but that is my point - it is too easy for all of us to get confused about what these licenses say. I know - I have done this countless times myself. * At some point in the last year, I was at a large, high profile national meeting, where a core developer of a large GPL'd project was giving a talk. Someone in the audience (who was not familiar with the GPL) asked "what license restrictions will there be on my code if it uses your GPL'd project." The speaker replied "none whatsoever, you can do whatever you want with your code." There are a dozens of ways of explaining this away, however, this is really what the speaker said. Again, these licenses are complicated enough that even projects who use the licenses can't keep it all straight. * The only way of deciding which interpretation of a legal document is correct is to have it tested in court. Because the subtle areas of the GPL/LGPL have not been tested in court (please correct me if I am wrong), it doesn't really matter to me that the LGPL has been around and used for 15 years. That won't help me one bit if there is ever a court ruling that goes against my interpretation of the license. To me this involves risk that must be accounted for in these decisions. BSD like licenses have very few grey areas. Brian --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
