[Haskell-cafe] Hmm, what license to use?

Manlio Perillo manlio_perillo at libero.it
Fri Sep 26 11:11:45 EDT 2008


Magnus Therning ha scritto:
> Recently I received an email with a question regarding the licensing
> of a module I've written and uploaded to Hackage.  I released it under
> LGPL.  The sender wondered if I would consider re-licensing the code
> under BSD (or something similar) that would remove the need for users
> to provide linkable object files so that users can re-link programs
> against newer/modified versions of my library.
> 
> Now I have fairly strong feelings about freedom of code and I
> everything I release is either under GPL or LGPL.  What I like about
> those licenses is it protects freedom in a way that I think it should
> and it forces a sort of reciprocity which resonates very well with my
> selfishness.  Re-licensing code under BSD is not something I'm willing
> to do without something that compensates for that reciprocity, and I
> can think of several kinds of compensation here but they all pretty
> much boil down to either fame or fortune. ;-)
> 
> Once GHC supports dynamic binding on all platforms (or at least the
> major ones) this issue will (largely) go away (thanks Andrew for
> reporting on the state of this), but until then LGPL does create a
> large burden for users of my module.  Until that happens I wouldn't
> mind re-licensing the code under a license that has the reciprocity
> attribute of LGPL on the source level, but does allow for static
> linking without requiring the availability of linkable object files.
> Is there such a license?
> 
> I've heard that the OCaml crowd uses a modified LGPL with a static
> linking exception.  Unfortunately I've also heard that their addition
> to LGPL hasn't gotten much review by lawyers, I'd much rather use
> something that feels less ad hoc, if you get what I mean.
> 
> Any suggestions?
> 

Sorry if I can't help, but I suggest you a quick check here:
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/category

> /M


Manlio Perillo


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