[liblouis-liblouisxml] Re: License issue
- From: Greg Kearney <gkearney@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: liblouis-liblouisxml@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 14 May 2014 14:14:33 -0700
I know of another major company that has issue with LGPL#3 as well.
Commonwealth Braille & Talking Book Cooperative
Greg Kearney, General Manager
605 Robson Street, Suite 850
Vancouver BC V6B 5J3
CANADA
Email: info@xxxxxxxxx
U.S. Address
21908 Almaden Av.
Cupertino, CA 95014
UNITED STATES
Email: gkearney@xxxxxxxxx
On May 14, 2014, at 1:52 PM, John Gardner <john.gardner@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hello all, in the early life of liblouis we adopted lgpl as our license. I
> do not recall any discussion of versions of that license. there were 2 at the
> time, and I believe we just adopted #2 because it was the most recent.
>
> In the meantime, LGPL#3 has come out and it is now listed somewhere as the
> official license for liblouis. I certainly do not recall any discussion of
> making that change. Perhaps others on the list can jog my failing memory.
>
> In any case, I have been advised by people who keep better track of license
> terms than I that LGPL#3 is completely unacceptable to companies and agencies
> who need to use liblouis with anything that is not open source. They tell me
> that LGPL#3, as opposed to LGPL#2 and 2.1, no longer permits an LGPL-licensed
> library to be used with software that is not open.
>
> I have just read over the two licenses. The preamble to LGPL#2 contains the
> very clear statement: “We use this license for certain libraries in order to
> permit linking those libraries into non-free programs.”
> There is absolutely nothing clear to me in LGPL#3. I have read over that
> license and frankly I do not understand one word. I encourage any of you to
> try and figure it out. Go tohttps://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl.html
> You can find the LGPL#2 at
> https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/lgpl-2.1.html This is hardly a
> paragon of clarity but at least I can figure it out.
>
> Since the big company lawyers are concerned about #3 and not about #2, and
> since our purpose is to use LGPL for the following reason stated in the
> preamble to LGPL#2 “the Lesser license provides advantages in certain special
> circumstances. For example, on rare occasions, there may be a special need to
> encourage the widest possible use of a certain library, so that it becomes a
> de-facto standard. To achieve this, non-free programs must be allowed to use
> the library.”
>
> So LGPL#3 has now been hi-jacked away from that purpose of the LGPL#2, and we
> cannot use it. Therefore I request that all references to liblouis license
> state that we are using LGPL2.
>
> While on the topic of licenses, I also would like for us to clarify the
> position we take for Apple and other systems that do not have any mechanism
> for permitting users to get the source code – as required by LGPL. In such
> cases, we should simply put in instructions as to how that source code can be
> obtained. Whether this technically meets LGPL requirements is perhaps not
> clear, but it does certainly meet the need. And it permits liblouis to be
> used in those closed systems.
>
> John Gardner
>
>
> there are terms in that license that are unacceptable to many commercial
> users. I have been blissfully unaware, but I have been approached by a major
> company who wants to use liblouis but is unwilling if we are using LGPL#3.
>
>
>
> John Gardner
> |
> President
> |
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