Alexandre Oliva wrote: > On Jun 18, 2008, Matthew Saltzman <mjs@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > >> Then can we at least agree that there are sometimes unfortunate >> consequences to the GPL's failure to permit one to share a work >> combining two pieces of *free* software because of relatively minor[1] >> license incompatibilities? > > Yeah, it's unfortunate when this happens. Definitely. It's something that GPL V3 has tried hard to fix, wherever possible. However, I must point out that in some cases post-GPL licences have *deliberately* been worded in a way that makes them incompatible with GPL code. Whatever the consequences, it's not appropriate to blame the GPL for those. >> In fact, I think it's arguable that there are sometimes unfortunate >> consequences to the GPL's failure to permit one to share a work that >> makes use of a GPL library and a proprietary library. > > Sparing a user from becoming dependent on a piece of proprietary > software might even be a sacrifice for the user, but it's actually an > advantage for the user and for society in the long run. Perhaps. I think we have to think about, for example, gcc ports. The fact that people who do ports of gcc are forced to ship the source for their changes has made a lot of free code available that wouldn't have been if they had been permitted to link proprietary code into gcc. Andrew. -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
