[JDEV] Resolution of Licence issues..

[Thomas Charron]

Quoting Jeremie <jeremie at jabber.org>:

> As was mentioned, expat is also covered under the MPL, which is very
> similiar to the LGPL in it's outcome.

  Merely figured one licence was easier to deal with then two..  ;-P

> The reasoning goes something like: the LGPL is for open-source libraries
> that compete with existing functionality in commercial libraries, to help
> sway commercial development into using a better library.  If what you're
> writing is a *new* library implimenting *new* functionality, you should
> avoid the LGPL and just use the GPL as there is no commercial development
> to convert.

  But this will also prevent anyone from developing commercially off of the 
libs without releasing their usage to the rest of the world.  Many companies, 
as much as people may distain it, do have legitimate reasons why the world 
can't see their code, be it legal reasoning or some other reason.  I don't 
think that they should be excluded from Jabber.

> That being said, I believe that forcing our "commercial neighbors" to
> re-impliment what we're doing in jlib might be a step backwards, when they
> could just contribute their efforts to help jlib become a better library
> for their development as well as ours.

  Yes, but GPL is like the worst kind of virus.  Everything that touches it 
needs to be GPL as well.  That's where I think the LGPL fills the gap.  That's 
not saying that are not contributing to the efforts of jlib, but would need to 
sacrifice everything they intend on doing to use it.

> So if a commercial entity can step forward and express interest in
> contributing to and utilizing jlib, let's use the LGPL, otherwise if there
> is no commercial interest, GPL will protect us from any corporate entity
> scooping it up w/o us knowing about it :)

  Ok, how about a compromise.  DO make it GPL, but express the fact that LGPL 
licences will be granted individually on request to corperate entities.  
Problem there is, they COULD turn around and give it away themselves, but we 
could then simply not release newer versions under the LGPL.  If it get's 
abused, we can simply stop updating.  This way we know who we've given LGPL 
licenses to..  Sounds ugly, but I really, REALLY think that we need to take 
into consideration closed source environments.

  Perfect example would be jlib in a Win32 MFC application.  We simply could 
NOT use it, becouse the GPL attempts to infect, and Microsoft's owndership of 
the MFC libraries clashes with those of the GPL..

--- 
Thomas Charron
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