BSD, Gav, LGPL, Jeremy, and business

[Brett Glass]

At 03:50 AM 2/16/2002, Patrik Stridvall wrote:

>Note that when Wine fully works (close to 100% of all Windows
>applications run) it will not matter what license we have,
>there will be no money in anything except support anyway
>and the LGPL will not hurt that.

WINE is not likely to work more than 90% ever, due to
the facts that Windows is a moving target and that
Microsoft is likely to patent defensively.

>It is the way there that worries me. Note that
>we can always choose LGPL later, but after we
>have choosen it we can't go back.

This is a concern.

>> 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.
>
>Please, now you are fear mongering again.

No, I am stating historical fact.

>I care not whether I support Stallman or not.
>I care ONLY about what is good for Wine.

Ethics, consumer choice, and the future of programming
as a profession all matter as well. It is not ethical
to focus only on the interests of one project.

>The GPL/LGPL works in ways that are almost the dual to fair use.
>Very simplified: It uses copyright to extend fair use.

The opposite is true. It attempts to deny fair use by programmers.
And GPL V3 will attempt to deny fair use by ASPs.

--Brett Glass