Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on January 06, 2004 01:46 AM
Here is what <A HREF="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-not-lgpl.html" TITLE="gnu.org">Richard Stallman says</a gnu.org> about the LGPL:
"Using the ordinary GPL is not advantageous for every library. There are reasons that can make it better to use the Library GPL in certain cases. The most common case is when a free library's features are readily available for proprietary software through other alternative libraries. In that case, the library cannot give free software any particular advantage, so it is better to use the Library GPL for that library."
In other words, if the functions provided by your library are unique, then if you use the GPL for your library, any developers who want to use it will be forced to also GPL their software (which is what RMS wants).
But if there is a proprietary alternative that provides the same functions as your library, then using the GPL for your library will only cause developers to switch to the proprietary alternative. In that case, using the GPL will only encourage the success of the alternative proprietary library. Thus, when there is a proprietary alternative for your library, you are better off using the LGPL, to encourage developers to use your Open Source library.
An example of this would be the Qt library. Since it is available under both the GPL and a proprietary license, developers who do not want to use the GPL for their own software will simply use the proprietary version of Qt. That's good for Trolltech, since it gives them a stable of locked-in developers who are dependent on the proprietary-licensed Qt. But Linux and the Open Source community would be better off if Qt was LGPL'd.
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Please stop the FUD
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on January 06, 2004 01:46 AM"Using the ordinary GPL is not advantageous for every library. There are reasons that can make it better to use the Library GPL in certain cases. The most common case is when a free library's features are readily available for proprietary software through other alternative libraries. In that case, the library cannot give free software any particular advantage, so it is better to use the Library GPL for that library."
In other words, if the functions provided by your library are unique, then if you use the GPL for your library, any developers who want to use it will be forced to also GPL their software (which is what RMS wants).
But if there is a proprietary alternative that provides the same functions as your library, then using the GPL for your library will only cause developers to switch to the proprietary alternative. In that case, using the GPL will only encourage the success of the alternative proprietary library. Thus, when there is a proprietary alternative for your library, you are better off using the LGPL, to encourage developers to use your Open Source library.
An example of this would be the Qt library. Since it is available under both the GPL and a proprietary license, developers who do not want to use the GPL for their own software will simply use the proprietary version of Qt. That's good for Trolltech, since it gives them a stable of locked-in developers who are dependent on the proprietary-licensed Qt. But Linux and the Open Source community would be better off if Qt was LGPL'd.
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