On Thu, 2006-02-16 at 16:29 -0600, Mike McCarty wrote: > Bob Taylor wrote: > > On Thu, 2006-02-16 at 07:48 +0100, Ralf Corsepius wrote: > > > >>On Thu, 2006-02-16 at 00:41 -0600, Les Mikesell wrote: > >> > >>>On Thu, 2006-02-16 at 00:31, Ralf Corsepius wrote: > >>> > >>> > >>>>>>In any case, no corporation is going to use anything which is GPL or > >>>>>>LGPL and risk being taken to court. > >>>>> > >>>>>They do use it, they just can't distribute it - not even if they > >>>>>want to give it away. Which means that the rest of us won't > >>>>>ever have it. > >>>> > >>>>Wrong. You can dynamically link against LGPL'ed libraries and many > >>>>closed source packages, comprising $$$ ones, do. > >>> > >>>Yes, but RMS would prefer that the LGPL did not exist. > >> > >>Yes, this is his opinion. It's a political statement of his, you can > >>agree with or not. > > > > > > As the author of the (L)GPL, his interpretation will carry great weight > > in a court case. > > Depends on what you mean by "carry great weight". It doesn't have much weight, unless the FSF owns a package. What weights at court is the copyright holder's intention. All the FSF does is to provide their (well-founded [1] and commonly accepted) view on the matter. As I see it, the fact they (and RMS) encourage the GPL and try to play the LGPL low is just consequent, because the LGPL, according the FSF's view isn't necessarily in the Open Source community's interest. > > Remember, the Clib with GCC at its initial release was GPL'd. Right, and it now is essentially LGPL'ed. > >>>>Tiny, but popular example: RealPlayer (RealPlayer10GOLD.rpm) > >>>> > >>>>ldd usr/local/RealPlayer/realplay.bin > >>>> linux-gate.so.1 => (0x00869000) > >>>> libstdc++.so.5 => /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.5 (0x00e97000) > >>> > >>>You'll note there's nothing like, say, libreadline in > >>>there. > >> > >>Exactly, because it's GPL'ed. LGPL and GPL are different things. > >>Though they are similar, they are substantially different. > > > > > > Unless the manufacturer of RealPlayer has a signed written statement > > from the FSF they are hoping they will not be sued by the FSF. You are missing one essential point: Only copyright holder can sue others for copyright infringement. I.e. the FSF will only be able to enforce their copyright on those parts they own the copyright. It might be news to you, but the FSF is pretty aggressive on doing so. Also, do you have a signed written statement from any library vendor your packages are linked/compiled against? Probably not. > Well, there's not enough information yet to make that determination. Partially yes, but ... ... the FSF would have sued or at least legally threatened parties shipping closed source SW dynamically linked against FSF owned libraries. Ralf [1] The FSF has very well reputed legal advisers (Google for Eben Moglen)
