Re: Plugins, libraries, licenses and Debian

[mru@kth.se (Måns Rullgård)]

"D. Starner" <shalesller@writeme.com> writes:

>> How then, can someone who tacks on the GPL, because he's seen it
>> before, and it's supposed to be a good choice, know exactly what he
>> really wants?  I'm not talking about GNU Readline here, I'm talking
>> about numerous small projects having nothing to do with the FSF and
>> their grand scheme.
>
> Right, this is all about feeling sorry for the poor people who chose
> a license which adds restrictions you don't like, so they obviously
> didn't really know what they want. I'd feel better off arguing that
> the numerous small projects having nothing to do with Berkeley and 
> their grand scheme (including X11-like licenses) didn't know what
> they really wanted, since they're the ones who aren't getting anything
> back from their license. In any case, it's insulting to the many 
> intelligent people who carefully thought about the license they wanted
> for their program.

I didn't mean to insult anyone.  Quite frankly, however, I don't think
many people would object to their library being used by an application
that also uses OpenSSL.  Of course, there are those who do have that
opinion, and it should be respected.  In the end, though, what matters
is what the license actually says, and nobody seems to know that for
sure.  I personally feel uncomfortable with applying a license that
1) nobody knows what it means, and 2) the FSF can change the terms of
at any time.

-- 
Måns Rullgård
mru@kth.se