[Haskell-cafe] LGPL and Haskell (Was: Re: ANNOUNCE: tie-knot library)

[Michael Snoyman]

On Thu, Dec 13, 2012 at 11:35 AM, Ramana Kumar <Ramana.Kumar at cl.cam.ac.uk>wrote:

> On Thu, Dec 13, 2012 at 8:09 PM, Michael Snoyman <michael at snoyman.com>wrote:
>
>> I also don't think that distributing programs is as small a market as you
>> think, and should also be something we support for commercial users of
>> Haskell.
>>
>
> Distributing programs commercially is compatible with distributing them as
> free software.
> I think it would be helpful not to use "commercial users" to refer to both
> those with policies against copyleft licenses and those who make money
> distributing software.
> Those groups are not even extensionally equal, and separating them further
> (by having companies reconsider such policies) is, I would think, an
> instrumental goal of the free software movement, which is one reason why
> these tensions arise.
>

I'm not saying that *every* commercial user of Haskell has these concerns.
But I think it's a fair statement to say that a very large number of
commercial users do not wish to give out their source code. If you want to
claim that this isn't a commercial concern, but simply a concern of many
companies, that's fine, but I think it's irrelevant to the point: in many
cases, you will be unable to use GPLed libraries when creating software for
companies. Ignoring semantics, are you arguing with that claim?

If you want to try and convince companies to change their software policies
by writing some incredibly compelling GPL libraries, more power to you, and
I wish you the best. But I think that's quite separate to the question of
whether usage of the GPL today will hinder your ability to sell your
products or services to a company.

Michael
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