[copyleft-next] exceptions/additional-permissions & weak copyleft

Luis Villa luis at tieguy.org
Thu Aug 2 14:52:24 UTC 2012


On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 3:07 PM, Bradley M. Kuhn <bkuhn at ebb.org> wrote:
> Richard Fontana wrote at 22:12 (EDT) on Tuesday:
>> No, because common weak copyleft licenses aren't structured as "strong
>> copyleft plus additional permissions". The one exception is LGPLv3, of
>> course.
>
> But policy-wise, that's what they are, even if they aren't structured
> that way.

In the world of platonic license forms, the structure doesn't matter.
But in the world of actually reading and interpreting licenses,
structure matters.

With no offense to our host, I find reading/interpreting LGPL v3
maddening for exactly this structural reason, and I am pretty sure I'm
in the majority in this area. And I actually like GPL v3; for those
who are for predisposed not to like v3 for any of the various reasons
available, LGPL v3's structure is only insult to injury.

> Anyway, Free Software licenses are about public policy and philosophy.
> The rest is, ultimately, just details.

Adoption is intimately linked to achievement of any public policy
goals, and ease of comprehension (encompassing not just policy but
also drafting and structure) is intimately linked to adoption.

Luis


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