From: WHS <wouters@cistron.nl>
  To  : ggi-develop@eskimo.com
  Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1998 20:06:57 +0200

Re: Open list of issues before Degas goes out

Ramon Garcia Fernandez wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 15 Sep 1998, WHS wrote:
> 
> > And no, *BSD'ers do NOT use glibc nor any LGPL'ed libs in the OS
> > (LGPL'ed stuff is extra, a 'port').
> 
> BSD people are using GNU C as the compiler for everything.

No, really?

> Tell BSD people that all their executable programs (except the kernel) are
> linked against libgcc.a (/usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-redhat-linux(or
> whatever)/2.7.2(or whatever gcc version you are using)/libgcc.a). This
> library is GPL, although it can be linked with non-GPL programs because of

It isn't GPL.

> an special exception:
> 
> /* As a special exception, if you link this library with other files,
>    some of which are compiled with GCC, to produce an executable,
>    this library does not by itself cause the resulting executable
>    to be covered by the GNU General Public License.
>    This exception does not however invalidate any other reasons why
>    the executable file might be covered by the GNU General Public License.
> */

I.e. it isn't GPL. This is completely irrelevant to why LGPL libggi and
in general LGPL/GPL runtime code is be a problem for BSD, so why would I
need to tell other BSD users this?

> Most of GGI developers are professional programmers (or potencial ones),
> and might not like the fact that their code can be used for writting a
> modified propietary library. This is like writting propietary software for
> free. If I write a propietary program I expect to get paid.

You know, this sort of simplistic reasoning really pisses me off. There
are various advantages to BSD'ing, which includes more input from
commercial users (yes, more input from them. This is what drives a lot
of the FreeBSD development, and also has improved e.g. libjpeg).
Furthermore, someone who thinks GPL'ing means improvements/changes will
always get returned into the community is sorely mistaken. E.g. there is
a very expensive Xemacs derivative for which the source is not anywhere
on the net. Why not, you ask? Well the customers probably aren't
interested in getting the source never mind uploading it on a server
somewhere. In any event, libggi is lowelevel, and for such stuff there
isn't much room for companies profiting off the code anyway.


> I believe that the best policy to BSD people is mutual respect. Everyone
> has his own license and respects the preferences of the other group. So
> everything that is beyond making the license enough liberal to be linked
> to BSD code is too much.

Come on! Use the license that gets you where you want to be. If that is
BSD, use BSD, if it is GPL, use GPL. You're making it look as if this is
just an act of mercy towards BSD (we'll let them use it) instead of
something that can benefit everyone (more GGI users = better debugged
code, more contributors etc). 

I'm not going to talk anymore about this until the IRC meeting, I've had
enough.

[more licensing bulllshit]
I forgot to send this reply to Kendall Bennett a while back, and I might
as well send it with the above reply, so here it is:

--------------
Kendall thinks: having to give back code (copyleft) means others can sue
the original copyright owners for derivative work of the original code
if that is not also released.

I say no, because:

A is written by you. B is based on A and written by other-guy (copyright
is you & other-guy).
A' is written by you and based on A.

other-guy cannot sue you because he has no copyrights on the code you
based A' on (you can apply this argument to individual files or pieces
of code in the package too).

So my question is again: will you sue yourself? (or correct me if I'm
mistaken that only copyright owners can sue (of what they own)).

--------------

Wouter