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

Luis Villa luis at tieguy.org
Fri Aug 3 02:35:38 UTC 2012


On a more productive note than my last email:

On Thu, Aug 2, 2012 at 3:01 PM, Bradley M. Kuhn <bkuhn at ebb.org> wrote:
> There are two separate and distinct groups who read and interpret
> FaiF licenses: those who read them to make sure the policy is right for
> advancing software freedom, and those who try to get the bare minimum
> reading so they can avoid sharing software with others.

In the case of LGPL and other less-than-broadest copylefts, the
explicit policy intent of the licensor is to allow the licensee to
"avoid sharing software with others" under at least some
circumstances. So in this case the groups are not separate or distinct
- someone seeking to fulfill the policy goals of the license may also
be seeking to reduce sharing to some non-full level. As a result, when
writing a less-than-full-copyleft, in order to *fulfill the policy
goals of the licensor*, it is quite important to use a clear,
understandable structure that clearly delineates what is and isn't
permissible reduced sharing. That allows the licensor to pick the
level of sharing they feel is appropriate to their policy goals, and
it allows the licensee to best respect the intent of the licensor when
figuring out their own level of sharing.

I don't think LGPL v3 does this, unfortunately - as I said, it's quite
hard to follow and integrate, and that reduces the effectiveness of
its policy goal of allowing some proprietary software in certain
circumstances.

Luis


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