Re: Using GPL for LibGTop with an exception for the GNOME Project

[Havoc Pennington <hp Mcs Net>]

On Sun, 21 Feb 1999, Gleef wrote:
> > I've got a short question regarding GPL<->LGPL copyright issues:
> > 
> > Currently the copyright of LibGTop is LGPL as it was since the early
> > beginning and if I understand things correctly it is required to use
> > the LGPL for any library that is distributed together with GNOME.
> > 

As an aside Martin, I think just for the main Gnome UI libraries. libgtop
isn't really something most apps would use; you could think of it instead
as a common core for all GPL top-style apps.

> Secondly, GPL'ing LibGTop has a minor risk associated with it.  Imagine a
> hypothetical OS, I'll call it FOOS.  FOOS is a very closed, proprietary
> OS, in fact, the only published way of getting at system statistics is
> through an add-on library, not shipped with the OS.  To get LibGTop
> working on FOOS, you would have to either reverse engineer the hooks to
> get the system statistics, or write the FOOS front-end to go through the
> add-on library.  Without rereading the LGPL, I think it is much more
> capable of handling such a situation gracefully than the GPL.
>

Any Unix-ish system will have ps, top, blah blah shipped with it; which
means it will have some way to get at the info under the GPL's system
exception clause. If it doesn't it's a piece of crap anyway. :-) 
This situation just doesn't sound very likely.

> I think it should either be truly LGPL or truly GPL.  GPL with exceptions
> just risks problems in the futures.  I like the thought of GPLing it, but
> I don't see a major problem with keeping it LGPL either.
> 

I agree, don't fool with the exception. Apps don't need libgtop to be
Gnome-compliant, and the LGPL is being used purely to encourage apps with
a variety of licenses to be Gnome-compliant. Extra features like
libezpaint and libgtop should be GPL so that free Gnome-compliant apps are
the best apps. These libs are really shared application components, not 
part of the generic Gnome app development libraries.

You can always charge people money to get libgtop under an alternate
license.:-)

Havoc