I'm perfectly happy with the GPL. You might find something like the
LGPL more useful if you want to allow proprietary commercial
applications to link against some sort of libstk. The reason I like
the GPL better than, for example, BSD style licenses is precisely
because it prevents the software from becoming proprietary. We had a
very close call with X11 becoming closed which would have been entirely
avoided if it were under the GPL.
Although I'm in favor of the GPL, it's not for the interoperability
reasons you cited. I believe that some of the packages you
pointed to are actually LGPLed and not GPLed, in which case you can
use them with STk without actually putting STk under the GPL. Others
seem to be something that STk would "use" but not "incorporate" & thus
even if they're under the GPL STk would still be able to use them
without becoming GPL software.
What I mean by "use" versus "incorporate" is as follows. Suppose STk
could compile to C code & called gcc to make a shared library that STk
then loaded in using libdld. Presumably libdld would have to be
linked in. If libdld is under the LGPL, then STk could be proprietary
& closed, even though gcc is under the GPL. If libdld is GPLed then
STk would have to be GPLed. This is because it's using gcc but
incorporating dld. Of course, if it (somehow) linked in gcc itself
instead of just calling it, it would have to be GPLed.
Of course, I'm not a lawyer, but as far as I can tell this is how it's
supposed to work.
--
Harvey J. Stein
BFM Financial Research
hjstein_at_bfr.co.il
Received on Fri Dec 25 1998 - 15:36:50 CET