On Thu, 15 Jun 2006 11:01:42 -0700 "Alan M. Evans" <ame1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > I have not seen you even once even approach the actual criticism > presented many times here. Instead, you keep redirecting to the "Don't > use GPL'd software if you don't want to abide by the license" straw man. Then you haven't been paying attention. I've shown that the criticism is often much overstated. That the restriction is reasonable. That it services the needs of people who are happy with it. That it protects the interests of the authors who decided to use the GPL. And that nobody is forced to use it, ie. it doesn't remove choice from anyone. > Here, then, is a criticism of the GPL *license*, not of software that > uses the license, and not of authors that choose the license. It is the > only license of which I am aware that seeks to control the behavior of > developers with regard to what *other* licenses are used. You focus in on this one aspect with which you disagree. Yes, everyone understands you disagree with that aspect of the GPL. Other licenses have _other_ restrictions which you happily ignore because they don't bother you. Yes the GPL has a restriction about how that software can be used. Just like every other license. Get over it. > By way of illustration, I am creating a program that uses five > components: > > A: a GPL-licensed library > B: a LGPL-licensed library > C: a proprietary-licence library for which I have only object code, > but rights to use and distribute > D: a BSD-licensed library > E: the main program that I wrote myself and may use/distribute any way > I like > > Only one of these licenses makes any stipulation about what the other > licenses are. The rest are agnostic about *other* software; they cover > only use and distribution of themselves. As long as I abide by those > licenses, they may be mixed together freely. Licence B only demands that > the distributor act accordingly with regard to B. Same with C, D, and E. > > But License A is different in this respect. If I abide by the terms of > the GPL then that license demands that all other components also abide > by those terms. > > In the GPL's reckoning, the proprietary library is a derived work of the > GPL library. It doesn't matter that the GPL library is for TCP > networking and the proprietary library is for low-level access to a > video chip. This is the loosest definition of "derived work" that I can > imagine. Often a BSD license will demand that you include an "advertising clause". You have to comply with that license. Often you won't even have a piece of proprietary software available because its license gives you no rights to use it. You keep focusing on this one little restriction made by the GPL like it's the end of the world. It's just a restriction, no different than the restrictions made by other licenses. You seem to really object to it, but what can I tell you, people who are happy with the GPL don't object to it and don't see a need to change anything. > And yet you call it "a confused piece of logic" to point out that it is > the GPL that is not integrating well here. C didn't tell the developer > that he couldn't use A, it was A that said he couldn't use C. Yes, it is a confused piece of logic. The GPL doesn't demand that you integrate it with other software. It's not compelling you to integrate other software. Once you decide to try to integrate other software you have to live with the reality that the respective licenses may not mix. Now you want to say that the only way to fix the situation is to change the GPL. I say there is another way, that is to change the license of the piece of software you want to integrate to GPL. But whatever the case, if you can't manage that then there is a conflict and you can not proceed. Oh well. > In the real world, developers often don't have a choice about C. But > they do have a choice about A. It's unfortunate that developers that > might otherwise support free software any way they can end up not being > able to at all. In the real world people are constrained by many thing. The constraints of the GPL are quite reasonable compared to the constraints imposed by many other factors. Sean
