[liblouis-liblouisxml] Re: License issue
- From: James Teh <jamie@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: liblouis-liblouisxml@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 16 May 2014 10:53:40 +1000
On 16/05/2014 9:34 AM, John Gardner wrote:
GPL was originally fairly ambiguous itself, enough that I had thought GPL
would be okay.
GPL would require that any application using liblouis were also GPL.
That part isn't ambiguous at all.
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.
Your statement is pretty broad. "no major company" suggests that you
have evidence from a huge number of "major companies" (not just one or
two) that LGPL 3 is a major problem as compared with LGPL 2.1. Your
statement that LGPL 3 software can't be used with proprietary
applications is incorrect. Otherwise, LGPL 3 and GPL 3 would be
identical, which they aren't. My guess is that the issue is with the
"installation information" requirement of section 6 of the GPL 3 (which
also applies to LGPL 3), which requires that a user be able to install a
modified version of the library onto their device without restriction
and that all required keys, information, etc. are provided to facilitate
this. This would certainly be a problem for iOS or any walled garden system.
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.
Just to give one example that immediately springs to mind, perhaps
someone discovers a bug or wants to make an enhancement and the app
vendor won't update their copy of the library.
Is it better not to have it on iOS or to be denied a toy that seems to be
required by the license?
Whether it's a toy is subjective. Unfortunately, right or wrong, you
chose LGPL 2.1 and it's a requirement of that license.
Jamie
--
James Teh
Executive Director, NV Access Limited
Ph +61 7 3149 3306
www.nvaccess.org
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For a description of the software, to download it and links to
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