Picking a license

[Ed Keith]

--- On Sat, 5/15/10, Robert Kern <robert.kern at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Robert Kern <robert.kern at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: Picking a license
> To: python-list at python.org
> Date: Saturday, May 15, 2010, 1:10 PM
> On 2010-05-14 21:37 , Steven D'Aprano
> wrote:
> > On Fri, 14 May 2010 06:42:31 -0700, Ed Keith wrote:
> > 
> >> I am not a lawyer, but as I understand the LGPL,
> If I give someone
> >> something that used any LGPLed code I must give
> them the ability to
> >> relink it with any future releases of the LGPLed
> code. I think that
> >> means that I need to give them a linker and teach
> them how to use it,
> >> and I do not want to go there.
> > 
> > Surely you're joking?
> > 
> > Does this mean that if they lose their hands in an
> accident, you have to
> > come sit at their computer and do their typing?
> > 
> > The LGPL and GPL don't grant people "the ability" to
> do anything, since
> > that's not within our power to grant. Some people
> don't want to, or
> > can't, program, or don't have time. It's not like the
> LGPL is the bite of
> > a radioactive spider that can grant superpowers. It is
> a licence which
> > grants *permissions*.
> 
> No, the LGPL requires you to do something extra to enable
> your users to be able to relink your program. You need to
> provide the ability to do this, up to some unspecified and
> untested limit of reasonableness (your example is obviously
> beyond the limit of reasonableness). You can't just give
> them, say, a statically linked program and nothing else. You
> can't require for-fee, proprietary linkers. This is usually
> not hard to do (just give them unlinked .o or .obj files and
> a Makefile or project file), but it is *not* just a matter
> of granting permissions.
> 
> But you're right, you don't have to teach them how to do
> it.
> 
> -- Robert Kern
> 
> "I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma,
> a harmless enigma
>  that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret
> it as though it had
>  an underlying truth."
>   -- Umberto Eco
> 
> -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
> 

But most of my clients run MS-Windows, and I do most of my development in C++, so they would need to use a proprietary linker.

    -EdK

Ed Keith
e_d_k at yahoo.com

Blog: edkeith.blogspot.com