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The renaming was entirely political. If the author wants their library to actually be used, it should be LGPL. GPL-ing a library almost always makes it pointles

by lucian1900 14y ago

The renaming was entirely political. If the author wants their library to actually be used, it should be LGPL. GPL-ing a library almost always makes it pointless.

dllthomas 14y ago
> The renaming was entirely political. Well sure; the FSF is essentially a political organization. I'm not sure what point you're making here. The renaming was a statement that the organization believes the license is not always what is most appropriate for libraries. This is entirely relevant to the original point, which was a refutation of the notion that the FSF is dumb for not using the clearly-appropriate-because-they-named-it-that "Library GPL". > If the author wants their library to actually be used, it should be LGPL. If the author wants their code to be used as broadly as possible, it should be public domain. If the author, maybe, has some concerns other than just how broadly the code is used, then some more restrictive license may be appropriate - BSD, LGPL, or GPL, depending on your particular goals. > GPL-ing a library almost always makes it pointless. If your only goal is broad adoption, then this is certainly the case. Somehow, I think the FSF has goals other than broad adoption of their software. Even so, it is certainly the case that releasing your library under the GPL will mean that many projects will avoid it. Whether this trade-off is worthwhile depends not only on the weight you place on various goals, but also on the nature of the library: something that adds huge amounts of value relative to alternatives, and relative to proprietary libraries that might serve as other parts of a final application, will be a lot more likely to change the license of prospective projects than something that is easily replaced or displaces other things of more value. This is actually more-or-less the FSF's position, per my understanding, on libraries: "we encourage GPL but do what makes sense." This was their reasoning on readline, and that definitely drove some GPLing of software before workalike alternatives surfaced. This was presumably their reasoning here. This is not to say that the reasoning is necessarily correct.

The renaming was entirely political. If the author wants their library to actually be used, it should be LGPL. GPL-ing a library almost always makes it pointless.

dllthomas 14y ago

> The renaming was entirely political. Well sure; the FSF is essentially a political organization. I'm not sure what point you're making here. The renaming was a statement that the organization believes the license is not always what is most appropriate for libraries. This is entirely relevant to the original point, which was a refutation of the notion that the FSF is dumb for not using the clearly-appropriate-because-they-named-it-that "Library GPL". > If the author wants their library to actually be used, it should be LGPL. If the author wants their code to be used as broadly as possible, it should be public domain. If the author, maybe, has some concerns other than just how broadly the code is used, then some more restrictive license may be appropriate - BSD, LGPL, or GPL, depending on your particular goals. > GPL-ing a library almost always makes it pointless. If your only goal is broad adoption, then this is certainly the case. Somehow, I think the FSF has goals other than broad adoption of their software. Even so, it is certainly the case that releasing your library under the GPL will mean that many projects will avoid it. Whether this trade-off is worthwhile depends not only on the weight you place on various goals, but also on the nature of the library: something that adds huge amounts of value relative to alternatives, and relative to proprietary libraries that might serve as other parts of a final application, will be a lot more likely to change the license of prospective projects than something that is easily replaced or displaces other things of more value. This is actually more-or-less the FSF's position, per my understanding, on libraries: "we encourage GPL but do what makes sense." This was their reasoning on readline, and that definitely drove some GPLing of software before workalike alternatives surfaced. This was presumably their reasoning here. This is not to say that the reasoning is necessarily correct.