BSD, Gav, LGPL, Jeremy, and business

[Boris Buegling]

Hello.

I read the discussion for some time and thought it is time for me to say 
something, mainly because I got very angry about Brett's Anti-GPL campaign.

On Sat, Feb 16, 2002 at 03:03:05AM -0700, Brett Glass wrote:
> At 02:38 AM 2/16/2002, Patrik Stridvall wrote:
> 
> >I'm sorry if I sound a little angry but it seems that some
> >of people have found me guilty by association with you
> 
> Patrik, don't you see? We're both guilty of the same sin:
> saying that everything does not revolve around the Earth.
> While we have different views of how things DO work, 
> there's exceedingly strong evidence for what we say. 
> But because it's contrary to some people's "religious" 
> beliefs they would rather excommunicate us, suppress
> what we have to say, or burn us at the stake than listen.
>
The *GPL people do the same as you: they claim their oppinion. 
> >What you are doing IMHO is pure fear mongering,
> 
> No, it's not. I am making predictions based on what
> has happened to other businesses in the recent past,
> as well as sound economic principles. I'm not advocating
> or attempting to induce fear. But if the outcome does not
> look rosy, it's because WINE really would head down a 
> very destructive path if it were (L)GPLed.
> 
Cool. Nostradamus is back ;)
> >I firmly believe that the GPL and the LGPL has
> >a place in the world. 
> 
> Their place, and purpose, has been stated by Stallman.
> (Not in the licenses themselves, which are designed
> to be deceptive, but in Stallman's words in his more
> candid moments.) It is to turn publicly available
> software into a weapon in his lifelong, personal
> vendetta. Again, he has stated this explicitly
> himself, and it is also well documented by third parties
> such as Levy.
> 
No Mr. Ballmer, it's not like that ;) While Stallman is quite strong in his
advocacy for the GPL, he is not an evil dictator, who is fighting for world
domination. You are only contributing off-topic Anti-GPL-FUD to this discussion.
> WINE should rise above this agenda and not become an
> agent of it.
> 
> --Brett
> 
> 
I have to agree with you on that point. I think the problem of this discussion
is, that neither the current X11/BSD license nor the LGPL are the right thing 
for WINE. We need another approach: a license that protects _both_ companies,
which are providing support (Codeweavers) AND companies, which are providing 
code (Transgaming/Lindows). ATM, Codeweavers provides code and gets nothing 
back and Lindows is getting much and is not giving anything. If we had LGPL,
CodeWeavers would have the benifit, while Lindows would lose its marketshare,
because ppl could just download the code. I don't have a solution at hand, but
I don't think LGPL or BSD will do the job. Maybe, we have to create our own
license ? But it is most obvious that the BSD vs. GPL does not lead us to 
anything. If these are the only options, we need a LGPL-fork and a BSD-version.
Brett's Anti-GPL campaign.
-- 
Boris Buegling  <boris at icculus.org>

There are three kinds of people: men, women, and unix.