Installshield 6 (inter-proc) patches

[Dimitrie O. Paun]

On Mon, 17 Dec 2001, Patrik Stridvall wrote:

[snip technicalities]
> Functionality on the other lies closer to fact or ideas than to expression
> so I would consider it doubtful for the courts to extend the doctrine
> of derived work to protect this.

Patrik,

The more I read your posts, the less I understand what you are trying to
say. You argued over many hundreds of lines over weird technical details
and various dubious assumptions about what courts will do in the future.

Stop for a movement and tell me: are you against the letter or the spirit
of the LGPL. The spirit is simple: 

Here is this thing, we give it to you for free, use it for your own
benefit however you see fit. But it's a labor of love, and many people put
thousands and thousand of hours in it, together with their hearts and
souls. As such, they hold it dear, and they want it to survive, and
thrive. All we ask is: if you've made _small_ improvements to it, to make
it useful to your purpose, please contribute those back such that our baby
can grow and develop together with your business. 

Note that I said "_small_ improvements" because of the modular nature of
Wine. If the improvements are big, the DLL separation would allow them to
keep those changes proprietary.

I fail to see _any_ moral/ethical/philosophical problem with this. Do you?

--
Dimi.