Installshield 6 (inter-proc) patches

[David Elliott]

On 2001.12.18 05:09 Patrik Stridvall wrote:
[snip]
> Dimitrie O. Paun wrote:
> > Stop for a movement and tell me: are you against the letter
> > or the spirit
> > of the LGPL.
> 
> Asking that question is like asking whether I support the spirit of
> Communism:
> "From each according to his abilities - to each according to his needs."
> 
> Well, it sound nice doesn't it? However doing a little deeper analysis
> I realize that the price for being able to do this is not worth paying.
> 
> Note however that I'm not equating GPL or LGPL with Communism.
> It was just an example from real life, that you get more that
> you wish for. See below.
> 
[snip]

That's a piss poor example.  The statement that something would be from 
each according to his abilities and to each according to his needs sounds 
to me at first glance like it would suck. And you don't have to dig too 
deeply to figure out why that would suck.  But maybe that's because I am 
an American capitalist though and through and that blatantly conflicts 
with my core values that everyone should do for themselves.  And to get 
off topic, why is that?  Because that's what everybody will do anyway, 
might as well work with that rather than pretend that it is otherwise.

This has lead me to another thought.  We cannot pretend that people are 
going to release code back to Wine under the X11 license.  However we can 
realize the obviousness of the truth that given the chance people will 
take whatever they can and give back nothing in return.  Some folks will 
give back because it may make more sense to do so than to not.  But some 
folks will be more than happy to take the whole codebase for their own 
good and provide nothing in return.

We need to stop living in the dream world that everyone who uses Wine will 
contribute back.  Yes, it is true that Corel, Codeweavers, TransGaming, 
etc. have given a lot to Wine.  None of them was or is required to give 
anything.

If the goal is to let people know that if they want to use Wine then they 
need to contribute back, then the only choice is to put that into the 
license.  By "use" I am obviously not referring to simply porting an 
application using Winelib.  I am referring to incorporating source code 
from wine into their own products.

This is exactly what the LGPL was meant to address.

I recall Uwe's usual .sig which is:
Free Software: if you contribute nothing, expect nothing.

Maybe we should have one for wine:
Wine: If you contribute nothing, well, there isn't shit we can do about it 
since we are X11 licensed.

-Dave