Re: gtkmm capabilities

[Roel Vanhout <roel riks nl>]

Ole Laursen wrote:
> Roel Vanhout <roel riks nl> writes:
> > This would be unacceptable for most commercial application that are
> > released nowadays.
> I've never really been into proprietary code, but why is that? As long
> as you cannot copy the work, you can only benefit by stealing ideas,
> but most programs aren't rocket science anyway. The LGPL seems to be
> enforcing fair use, simply.

Well yes, it does. However, have a look at the licenses of a couple of 
"big" and "well-known" software packages. Most have clauses that forbid 
reverse engineering. I don't know exactly why (although I can think of a 
few reasons, like wanting to keep file formats proprietary, or a certain 
algorithm) but that's irrelevant. It doesn't matter _why_ these people 
want to forbid reverse engineering, point is that they _can not forbid 
it if they use an LGPL library_. Which can be used as an argument _no to 
use_ LGPL libraries. Again, I'm not arguing pro-proprietary software. I 
prefer Free Software, and I will advice compenies I work for to choose 
it over proprietary software (when applicable). But that's not how 
managers and, more importantly, lawyers see it. They see big red 
'LIABILITY' warning signs. And in a way, they are right, at least IMO.

> Besides, what matters is what the copyright holders think, right?
> I.e. Murray and co.

Heh no, that's not what matters :) What matters is what the license 
says. That's the legally binding thing. I mean, how can I know what the 
copyright-holders think? That's the whole reason things like this 
(licenses, contracts, wills, ...) are written down. It could be legally 
relevant if the developers would create a strong impression that the 
disputed use of the software is allowed, but a user would have to prove 
that - it's legally murky water and up to a judge. (I have to make a 
note here that I'm reasoning from civil law theory here, it may be a bit 
different in common law systems (ie, the US) but common law systems 
generally rely even more on 'concrete' evidence than civil law systems 
so I think I can justify my assumption).
Besides that, who are the copyright holders? Murray would be the first 
person that comes to mind, but what about the code that was left over 
from the early days that was written by other people? And what about 
patches from various people? Remember, _each and every one of them 
maintains the copyright over his/her piece of code_ (Unless there is 
proof of a transfer of copyright, that is). That's why Microsoft's open 
source projects (wtl, wix) require you to fill in, sign and send in a 
copyright transfer form before you can contribute code.

> > 'Real' commercial licenses have stood up in courts all over the
> > world, I know of no cases where the LGPL has been court-tested (GPL
> > has been (more or less) found valid in the Netfilter/Sitecom case in
> > Germany last year, but that was for the GPL which is much clearer
> > than the LGPL).
> But that's just FUD. :-)

If I would have said that in relation to the GPL, then yes, I too would 
have qualified that as FUD. But I'm not so sure about the LGPL. It's 
much a much less clear license than the GPL is, especially in this area 
(statically linking an LGPL library with a commercial application). 
Plus, saying that the GPL hadn't been court-tested until last year isn't 
FUD; it's only FUD if you imply that it wouldn't stand up.

Some (many?) projects release their software under a modified LGPL 
license, to explicitly allow static linking (wxwidget comes to mind, but 
there are others).


cheers,

roel