Hello John,If your main aim is to get as many people using the libraries and programs as possible, then I would agree with Neil (I think I am of a similar mind with Neil on licenses anyway, so may be I am biased).
Coming to your specific question, would making the tools GPL affect calling them rather than linking with them. Well the answer doesn't seem to be clear or fully decided, I found the following in the frequently asked questions on the GNU website:
"*What is the difference between an "aggregate" and other kinds of "modified versions"?*
An "aggregate" consists of a number of separate programs, distributed together on the same CD-ROM or other media. The GPL permits you to create and distribute an aggregate, even when the licenses of the other software are non-free or GPL-incompatible. The only condition is that you cannot release the aggregate under a license that prohibits users from exercising rights that each program's individual license would grant them. Where's the line between two separate programs, and one program with two parts? This is a legal question, which ultimately judges will decide. We believe that a proper criterion depends both on the mechanism of communication (exec, pipes, rpc, function calls within a shared address space, etc.) and the semantics of the communication (what kinds of information are interchanged). If the modules are included in the same executable file, they are definitely combined in one program. If modules are designed to run linked together in a shared address space, that almost surely means combining them into one program. By contrast, pipes, sockets and command-line arguments are communication mechanisms normally used between two separate programs. So when they are used for communication, the modules normally are separate programs. But if the semantics of the communication are intimate enough, exchanging complex internal data structures, that too could be a basis to consider the two parts as combined into a larger program. "So I could see it being argued either way for a program which executes xml2brl (as you said Mac Louis does). Personally I wouldn't be bothered with bringing anything against something like Mac Louis's authors if it didn't have a license suitable for combining with the GPL (as it only calls the tool with command line options), but I can't talk for everyone.
Michael Whapples On 01/10/09 19:51, John J. Boyer wrote:
Thanks to everyone for the feedback. My concern is simply to get the libraries used as widely as possible. Some people might want to call xml2brl from a GUI, as the Mac Louis does. They would not be linking to it, just calling it. Would making it GPL have an effect on this? John On Thu, Oct 01, 2009 at 10:54:37AM -0700, Neil Soiffer wrote:In general, I would like to see the tools have as loose a license as possible.* In cases where you are using GPL code, you're stuck with making them GPL.* GPL vs more open licenses such as BSD is a "religious" debate and I prefer BSD because it has fewer restrictions and is thus much clearer about what can be done.* But as I said, you'll get strong advocates on the other side of the issue.** Since liblouis is lgpl, the person who does the work/writes the tools gets to set the terms, not the library writer.* If you consider it a group effort, that's when the discussion can get heated. FYI:* a couple of years ago we wrote a COM wrapper for liblious so that it could be more easily used by tools that needed a MathML-to-math braille code translator, but didn't want to lock/link themselves to a specific translator or specific release of the translator.* The COM wrapper has gone stale and needs updating (any takers?), but I don't want that to be GPL.* I'm not even sure whether COM components are considered eligible for LGPL or not (they may or may not be loaded into the address space of a process).* I've always been a fan of NewSpeak when it comes to software licenses:* "less is more". *** Neil On Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 7:42 AM, Samuel Thibault <[1]samuel.thibault@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: Hello, Christian Egli, le Thu 01 Oct 2009 10:53:33 +0200, a *crit : > This implies that we need to relicense the tools (and only the tools) > under the GPL. So to that effect I have asked the copyright holder John > Boyer and John Gardner for permission to change the license of the > tools. Well, strictly speaking, although it's clearly a good thing to ask authors and users, LGPL can be casted into GPL without notice, as explicited in LPGL: *3. You may opt to apply the terms of the ordinary GNU General Public License instead of this License to a given copy of the Library. [...]* In the case of brltty, we did the converse: libbrlapi got turned into LGPL, which required consent from the authors. Brltty remained GPL. Samuel For a description of the software and to download it go to [2]http://www.jjb-software.com References Visible links 1. mailto:samuel.thibault@xxxxxxxxxxxx 2. http://www.jjb-software.com/
