Re: GUI design

[Daniel J Sebald]

On 03/29/2012 02:06 PM, Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso wrote:
> On 29 March 2012 14:54, Daniel J Sebald<address@hidden>  wrote:
> > The L of LGPL stands for "lesser".  I'm not sure what the difference is
> > between the LGPL license and the GPL license, but apparently they are
> > different:
>
> This essay explains what the LGPL is and how it's meant to be used:
>
>      http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html
>
> I noticed earlier in the discussion about GUI Octave that you seemed
> surprised that the GPL doesn't allow certain things.

I see GUI Octave as an aggregate.  Octave is not linked in the code 
space.  The L of LGPL started out as "library" for a reason I would 
assume.  Some day there will be a "CGPL", where the "C" stands for 
"cloud" at first, but then later it will stand for "community".


>  Indeed, it
> doesn't. The GPL forbids distributing non-free derivative works. And
> here "free" means the same thing that it means in the phrase "a free
> man". It doesn't mean a man you don't have to pay for, because that
> would be a slave, and slaves are certainly not free. ;-)
>
> Briefly, the LGPL explicitly allows linking with non-free works and
> distributing the result, but the GPL doesn't:
>
>      
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Lesser_General_Public_License#Differences_from_the_GPL

Yes, I see.  And it reads a bit like hypocritical condescension, in my 
opinion.  At the end of the description it says:

"Proprietary software developers, seeking to deny the free competition 
an important advantage, will try to convince authors not to contribute 
libraries to the GPL-covered collection. For example, they may appeal to 
the ego, promising “more users for this library” if we let them use the 
code in proprietary software products. Popularity is tempting, and it is 
easy for a library developer to rationalize the idea that boosting the 
popularity of that one library is what the community needs above all.

But we should not listen to these temptations, because we can achieve 
much more if we stand together."

All right.  ALL FOR ONE AND ONE FOR ALL!!

But near the front of the description it reads:

"Using the ordinary GPL is not advantageous for every library. There are 
reasons that can make it better to use the Lesser 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 Lesser GPL for that library.

This is why we used the Lesser GPL for the GNU C library. After all, 
there are plenty of other C libraries; using the GPL for ours would have 
driven proprietary software developers to use another—no problem for 
them, only for us."

Huh?  But, but... but you just said don't give in to the temptation.

Dan