[liblouis-liblouisxml] Re: License issue
- From: "John Gardner" <john.gardner@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <liblouis-liblouisxml@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 15 May 2014 16:34:45 -0700
Jamie, the corporate lawyers tell me they are happy with LGPL2 - I actually
didn't ask specifically about 2.1 but I will do that for sure. To my knowledge
there have been no lawsuits challenging either LGPL or GPL so everything is
opinion. GPL was originally fairly ambiguous itself, enough that I had
thought GPL would be okay. But we persuaded the BRLTTY folks to let us switch
to LGPL when corporate lawyers told me that ambiguous was not good enough. iOS
is not the reason we must revert to version 2 or 2.1. No major company will
allow liblouis to be used with their software on any platform if we use LGPL3.
I personally would like to see liblouis on iOS. I can not really understand how
anybody could be injured by inability to change it and still use it on iOS.
(And injury must be proven to win any lawsuit.) Is it better not to have it on
iOS or to be denied a toy that seems to be required by the license? We need to
have a lawyer opinion on our liability. This is just getting bloody
ridiculous. If John and I had any idea how much difficulty it would cause us,
we probably would have started liblouis from ground zero instead of using
BRLTTY for some of the original code.
John Gardner
-----Original Message-----
From: liblouis-liblouisxml-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:liblouis-liblouisxml-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of James Teh
Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2014 4:16 PM
To: liblouis-liblouisxml@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [liblouis-liblouisxml] Re: License issue
On 16/05/2014 1:00 AM, John Gardner wrote:
> Christian, you ask:
> So could we try to convince these big corporate lawyers that LGPL3 isn't all
> that bad?
> John G: No we cannot unless you have a few million dollars to file a test
> lawsuit. So it is just counter-productive to argue whether LGPL3 is or is
> not okay. Unless of course the person doing the arguing is willing to file
> that lawsuite.
So you're saying a test law suit was filed for LGPL 2.1?
> Sorry, but this LGPL mess has fully subverted the purpose of this consortium.
> John Boyer and I started it with the stated purpose of making good braille
> available to everybody. We either find a way to revert to LGPL2 or we will
> just have to start a new project under a more acceptable license. Those are
> the only two alternatives
There are two points worth noting:
1. You've stated that lawyers seem to be happy with LGPL 2.1, but I've
only seen mention of one example of an iOS app that actually uses an
LGPL 2.1 library. One example isnt much to go on, unless there are more
that you know of. As I understand it, there are potential issues even
with LGPL 2.1; e.g. the restrictions on relinking a modified version of
the library. If we're going to relicense, it'd be good to establish
whether this will actually solve the problem.
2. We do have a list of authors in the AUTHORS file. Beyond that, each
table should at least list the author in its comments.
For what it's worth, I personally hae no objection with moving to LGPL
2.1. If the consensus is to move to an even more permissive license, I
suppose I wouldn't stand in the way of that, but it's not ideal from my
perspective.
Jamie
--
James Teh
Executive Director, NV Access Limited
Ph +61 7 3149 3306
www.nvaccess.org
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/NVAccess
Twitter: @NVAccess
SIP: jamie@xxxxxxxxxxxx
For a description of the software, to download it and links to
project pages go to http://www.abilitiessoft.com
For a description of the software, to download it and links to
project pages go to http://www.abilitiessoft.com
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