Licensing response and an idea

[Christopher Dewey]

Brett Glass wrote:
> 
> At 01:13 PM 2/13/2002, Christopher Dewey wrote:
> 
> >With the exception of the copyright holder(s), (L)GPL provides everyone
> >with the same rights.  The license does not discriminate between
> >developers and "potential developers".
> 
> Not so. The (L)GPL allows everyone to use the code in the way
> that benefits him or her the most, EXCEPT for developers -- who
> not only may not use the code but may be exposed to claims of
> copyright infringement if they even read it in order to learn
> from it. The (L)GPL is also intended to destroy their markets,
> businesses, and livelihoods. The (L)GPL is thus extremely
> discriminatory against programmers.

Brett, you continue to ignore that the (L)GPL implicitly
treats *everyone* as programmers, regardless of their occupation,
motives, intent, or what they actually end up doing with the
software.  By painting the license as "discriminatory", and
continuing your attacks on the FSF and RMS's politics on this
list, you confuse the issue, and do this list and the Wine
community a disservice.

The issue at hand is that neither the LGPL, nor the current Wine
license meet every Wine developer's needs and goals, with the
consequense that the development effort spent on Wine may be
slowed or fragmented.  It's a real problem, and a compromise
is required.

I'm thankful that the principal Wine developers, including
the representatives of commercial interests, all seem very
level-headed and pragmatic with regard to the problem.  Hopefully
they will find a compromise that allows them to pursue their
common goals, to the benefit of the greater Wine community.