[liblouis-liblouisxml] Re: License issue
- From: Greg Kearney <gkearney@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "liblouis-liblouisxml@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <liblouis-liblouisxml@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 15 May 2014 06:56:16 -0700
I know that LGPL#3 is an absolute deal killer for Apple.
Sent from my iPhone
Greg Kearney
Commonwealth Braille and Talking Book Cooperative
> On 15 May 2014, at 2:35 am, Christian Egli <christian.egli@xxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Hi John
>
> "John Gardner" <john.gardner@xxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
>
>> 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'm not a laywer but I do not think that this is true. The LGPL3 just
> like the LGPL2 is a weak copyleft (according to gnu.org and wikipedia)
> which means that anyone can "link to the library, and then be
> redistributed without the legal requirement for the work to be
> distributed under the library's copyleft license" (quoted from
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft#Strong_and_weak_copyleft).
>
> A benefit of weak copyleft for me is that the contributions that I make
> will remain free and accessible to users while they can still be
> combined with commercial software.
>
>> 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 to
>> https://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl.html
>
> I read it and as I said I'm not a laywer. Presumably "You may convey a
> Combined Work under terms of your choice that, taken together,
> effectively do not restrict modification of the portions of the Library
> contained in the Combined Work" (section 4 "Combined Works") means that
> if you provide the source of liblouis you are free to combine it with
> any other work that is under a license of your choice.
>
>> 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.”
>
> I agree with that purpose but I think LGPL3 provides this just as well
> as LGPL2.1.
>
>> So LGPL#3 has now been hi-jacked away from that purpose of the LGPL#2,
>> and we cannot use it.
>
> Who says that "LGPL#3 has now been hi-jacked away from that purpose"? I
> don't see this.
>
>> 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.
>
> I'd like to know more about this and would be happy to work with you to
> try to resolve this.
>
> Thanks
> Christian
>
> --
> Christian Egli
> Swiss Library for the Blind, Visually Impaired and Print Disabled
> Grubenstrasse 12, CH-8045 Zürich, Switzerland
>
> -----
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For a description of the software, to download it and links to
project pages go to http://www.abilitiessoft.com
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