Re: [OT] Re: [gl4java-usergroup] GL4Java logo

[Kerry L. B. <ke...@vs...>]

At 12:26 AM 5/17/00 +0200, Max Gilead wrote:
>Any quotations? URLs? Do you have any informations for sure or are those just
>hearsay news? For now it is spreading FUD. I haven't found anything about
that
>on www.gnu.org.
>
>And don't flame (L)GPL licenses because it's mostly matter of personal
>philosophy which one to use. There are many licenses approved by
>opensource.org (whatever their right to approve or not is) so if you don't
>like one you can choose between many public ones or write your own.
>
>For me, personally, inability to use code published under terms of GPL
>(copyleft) in closed-source applications is the most important reason TO USE
>this license.

Please don't get me wrong, I am not trying to flame GPL or the LGPL
license, each has their place, and I've used both.  GPL is a useful license
in some cases.  I just don't want to see it used in libraries.

My philosophical problem with the GPL is that I believe in making code
usable by as many people as possible.  I understand there are cases when an
entity may wish to prevent a commercial competitor from benefiting directly
from released source, or cases where open source developers don't want
commercial groups to make money from their own work given for free, or
dozens of other special cases.

The problem is that GPL does more than that, and the definition of "derived
works" as obligating conversion to GPL is being expanded.  This is being
done ostensibly to handle cases like GPL code being placed behind a servlet
or ASP and used in a closed app.  However, ESR/RMS (which?) also spent a
good deal of time looking at the Java issue, I'll find some URL's for you
later if you want, I'm looking now myself.

w/r/t my assertion that GPL is attempting to force a migration to GPL, I
would think that is obvious from the viral issue.  If you want references,
how about an article written for Linux Today by Richard Stallman dated Feb
1, 1999, entitled "Why you shouldn't use the Library GPL for your next
library" at <http://linuxtoday.com/stories/2754_flat.html>.  He explains
the GNU project's motivations, simply rephrased that the benefits of
restricting reusable components to "free" projects will help "free"
projects "outdo" proprietary code.  I don't consider that "open".