Re: Module proposal: Empathy for GNOME 2.22

["Luis Villa" <luis tieguy org>]

On 9/27/07, Andrew Cowie <andrew operationaldynamics com> wrote:
> On Thu, 2007-09-27 at 10:03 +0100, Martyn Russell wrote:
> > I wouldn't re-license it
>
> [there is tons of both context and history here, which the rest of this
> thread covers. On the topic of licencing, however:]
>
> I must admit that as an advocate of software freedom and as someone who
> works for a firm that releases its work under the GPL, I am not adverse
> to the idea of a GNOME library being licenced under the GPL only.
>
> I realize full well that there is a certain fraction of the wider
> universe of people who use the GNOME platform who are using it under the
> pragmatic terms of the LGPL to write their proprietary software. Some of
> those companies contribute to our community their IP and their
> employees' time, and that's fantastic.
>
> I hugely respect, however, the expression that has been made by people
> who wrote software under the GPL that they wish it to remain so
> licenced. That's their call, and it is effectively final.

It is of course their call. And likewise it is the GNOME community's
call not to accept libraries licensed as such.

We have a very longstanding and very deliberate policy to license our
libraries LGPL, and it has served us well. This is not the time to
change it, *especially* since we want these libraries to be deeply
embedded into all of GNOME, not just some applications.

Luis