[Pipet Devel] License

[Jean-Marc Valin]

"J.W. Bizzaro" a écrit :
> 
> Jean-Marc Valin wrote:
> >
> > LGPL is OK for me. Though I propose the same license modification as in Linux:
> > allow linking with closed-source binaries.
> ...
> > Anyone thinks this is bad?
> 
> That's fine with me.  I like everything about the GPL, except for the
> restriction on linking to/from closed-source binaries.  That's why I prefer
> the LGPL.
> 
> > Overflow can use foreign nodes and
> > types compiled in a shared library. This is forbidden by the (L)GPL, unless it
> > is explicitly allowed, as for the Linux kernel (which allow closed-source
> > drivers).
> 
> I thought the Linux kernel was GPL, not LGPL.
> 
> The LGPL already provides an exception for linking to/from closed-source
> binaries.  Can you post the passage in the LGPL or GPL where you have to
> 'explicitly allow' closed-source linking?

There are two very different issues here. The LGPL allows a closed-cource
program to link with the Overflow libraries. However, neither the GPL, nor the
LGPL allows to link the program/library with a closed-source library. This means
that even is Overflow is LGPL (for the libraries) and GPL (for the program), you
couldn't link it with a closed-source library. This is the same reason why KDE
was at one point "illegal", since it was linking against a closed-source
library, Qt.

Because of that issue with the LGPL, Linus explicitly "modified" the GPL to
allow closed-source drivers.

	Jean-Marc

-- 
Jean-Marc Valin
Universite de Sherbrooke - Genie Electrique
valj01 at gel.usherb.ca