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Re: License with the following characteristics?



Nathanael Nerode <neroden@twcny.rr.com>:

> I'm thinking of licensing a program under the GPL, but I dislike the 
> FSF's overly restrictive concept that 'dynamic linking is modification'.
> 
> I want my program (and any derivative works) to be allowed to use 
> *accurately documented and published* interfaces to proprietary 
> (or any other) libraries or programs.

I have occasionally searched for the same thing myself, without any
great success.

The LGPL seems about right in spirit, but it explicitly talks about
the work being a "library", which makes it hard to apply it the other
way round, though you could design your program to make everything
look like a library.

Recently someone asked my permission to use in an LGPL library a bit
of code that I had contributed to a GPL project. It was easy enough to
say yes, but perhaps I should have dual-licensed it in the first place
as my file was providing library-like functionality and I might not
have been contactable later. Also, other people might have made
significant contributions to the file using the same licence.

Edmund



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