Re: xinetd license possibly violates DFSG #4
On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 01:56:54AM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote:
> Hmmm. I'm not sure blanket acceptance of "closed-universe" projects is
> really a good idea. I'm not sure it serves our users very well, and I'm
> pretty confident it doesn't serve the Free Software community very well.
>
> At the same time, I'm struggling to determine an essential distinction
> between a single de-facto closed-universe project, and a vast collection of
> such projects (which all works licensed under the GNU GPL could be said to
> be).
I wonder if a different, GPL-like viral copyleft (such as a hacked GPL without
a fallback clause) could even be used in Debian.
The only reasons the LGPL is GPL-compatible are 1: the LGPL-to-GPL downgrade
clause (LGPL#3), and 2: the "operating system" exception (GPL#3), which is
irrelevant for Debian. A work under a modified GPL would lose #1, as well,
so it seems that the LGPL would be incompatible with that license--which
includes glibc, probably making it practically useless, even if DFSG-free.
(Lacking a real package under such a license, we don't necessarily need to
explore this in detail now, but I'm interested in any comments anyway,
especially of any logic errors in the above.)
--
Glenn Maynard
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