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WINE May Change To LGPL
isolation wrote to us about the proposal to change the Wine license to LGPL. Jeremey's got his ideas and reasons in the e-mail there, and it makes sense - Jeremy's a smart guy. There's a call for opinions on this as well, so read through it, and offer commentary.
This is exactly why copyleft is IMPORTANT to keeping free and open source projects free and open and why the X.11 or other so called "commercial exploitation friendly" licenses are indeed very bad. I am glad to see the people behind WINE understand this although it is a shame they had to learn this lesson as a result of abuse by others.
No ones linked to them yet this article and this article give a bit more information on what LGPL is and why there is an issue.
Although I understand the reasoning this sort of issue is what will drive companies away from adopting Linux. I'm already finding that I have to read the small print for every damn piece of software/code that I use just in case I end up using something which I will have to pay for or be prohibited from using if I use it commercially. Pain in the backside.
On Wed, Feb 06, 2002 at 07:51:04PM -0500, Dimitrie O. Paun wrote:
:-) Other scenarios I can imagine: drivers for hardware -
> Yeah, that could work. But I still don't understand your objections about
> the proprietary drivers: LGPL would work just fine with that. What's your
> concern?
Look at the copy protection stuff that transgaming have added to their
tree: they licensed it and thus quite likely can't publish the source
for this - but I still want to see this in the binary only releases
they make
think of a company that wants to port their software to Linux via wine
but continue using a dongle or something like that: the dongle code
is quite likely to go into the kernel itself (and may need some support
for that by the wineserver).
Ciao
Jörg
-----------
PS Since I have been modded down on previous posts, I have been slowing learning how to be a good Karma citizen from other examples on Slashdot.
(Please browse at -1 to read this comment.)
after reading the email and then finding the wine license it makes a lot of sense to me why they would want to switch to LGPL. As someone who works with computers and has seen the myriad of license and contractual negotiations that are caused by corporate use of software, i've always wondered how free or open software would survive, and always had thought the apache and lgpl licence schemes gave the most advantage to software companies in promoting/using said software while still making a dollar with their enhancements.
No matter what we want, if there is a company behind a product, it needs to make money.
I've had some commercial dealings around software which had been GPLed, and from my experience in the world out there, OSS licenses really scare companies, both big and small. I believe that the LPGL is a great half-way house, in that it allows people to create software that makes the most of the platform and libraries which are already available, without necessarily "tainting" (this it the word used whenever I've been involved with license discussions) the code that, in the end, the company wants to sell, and make money from. Although I'd like to see more sofware being free, I think that driving the platform will produce more software full stop, and some of it will be free, which is a start.
The LGPL allows commercial activities on a non-commercial platform, and encourages commercial companies to feed back improvements into the LGPLed code which will improve the quality of the platform. Wine is a major project, and if it moves to LGPL, this should help the license, and by extension, the platform, as well as the availability of software. I'd definitely vote "yes".
Same thing is happening Wine as has been happening
to BSD for years. Get these vampires that forever
suck the life out of projects and do little or
nothing in return for the host.
I'm not a programmer myself, besides some basic scripting and such here and there, so take this with an appropriate grain of salt.
Do people write code in order to write good code and improve the state of computing, or do they do it in order to coerce other programmers into helping along?
It seems to me that the BSD license is representative of the first ideal, and the GPL of the second.
--saint
GNU is more like "Feel free to drink form this well, but please don't steal the bucket."
Seems to me like the GPL is "feel free to drink from this well, but if you make pasta with the water everyone gets some."
It's impossible to steal the bucket with either license.
For example, I use OpenBSD at home. Say I wrap up OpenBSD and call it "FooSecure - The World's Most Secure OS" and sell it for a hundred dollars a copy, without making anything but cosmetic changes and closing the source.
Does openbsd.org cease to exist? Of course not.
I'm not trying to be a troll, here, but I honestly don't understand how people think the GPL is so free.
(I know, that sounds like "I'm not trying to be a troll, but Emacs suX0rs!". Sorry.)
--saint
Do people write code in order to write good code and improve the state of computing, or do they do it in order to coerce other programmers into helping along?
The GPL guarantees both, while BSD only guarantees one. I want good code, but I want that code to be available for me in the same way that I made it available. If it's improved, but locked up in a proprietary product, what good does it do me as a programmer?
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
The only resonsibility anyone has under the LGPL is is to provide the modified LGPLed part of Wine to those who;
The only problem I see with this is if a company makes substantial changes to the LGPLed source, and they are unwilling/incapable to seperate the parts they want to keep for themselves into little propriatory modules, they would have an attitude problem.
Since patches to the LGPLed parts could be used as hooks to link in the propriatory modules, it does not seem like a dire problem for a half decient programmer. After all, they get the rest of Wine/Winelib for no dollar cost or effort.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
The GPL guarantees both, while BSD only guarantees one. I want good code, but I want that code to be available for me in the same way that I made it available. If it's improved, but locked up in a proprietary product, what good does it do me as a programmer?
As a programmer, nothing. As a user, maybe or maybe not a lot. It all depends.
The BSD guarantees freedom for all without limitations on the 'all' or how the 'all' uses it.
Check out Apache for a good example of how the BSD license triumphs. IBM has given a lot of code to Apache even while having their own closed-source version (IHS).
Your example isn't what happens in the real world. usaully a company or person will convince some folks to spend time doing something "for the good of the project". Well, often times it just turns out that effort was just to bolster their fork they have been working on. When their stuff is done, and they have what they came for, they slam the door and turn their backs on the project developers.
I think there are two companies doing this to Wine right now. Has Wine sufficiently benefitted from these relationships to merit holding a license that encourages more parties that act in the same manner?
It looks like some people who have been donating time and effort freely for years disagree. They are the people who keep a project alive, and who's
opinions I'd be apt to go with.
The concept of open software and it's use with a corporate, or business, structure is new and many people/companies don't really know what to do with it. We don't know which license works best in a corporate environment. Is that the point? Maybe, maybe not. If Open Software is going to have widespread use and acceptance, it's THE point.
I don't want to speak for anyone else, but personally it would improve my life, both at work and home, if Open Software WAS a staple. I prefer Linux as both a workstation and personal PC OS. It would be helpful if mgmt wasn't resistant to it's use in the workplace and more of the "warm and fuzzy" apps (games, some of the streaming media kinda junk, blah, blah, blah) were available for Linux at home.
So from that standpoint, we need to see which of the Open licenses really works. Being able to establish a revenue model is key for Open Software to really get going in the business world. Right now that points to a BSD-style license.
Yeah, we may have MS "snitching" the BSD TCP/IP stack, but we also now have lote of APPLE users on a BSD-style OS! Who would have thought that was possible a few years ago? That's real progress and it's also bringing the benefits of Open Software to the masses. I'd think even RMS would support that, although he may choke on the BSD license.
On the flip side: IBM is pushing Linux, but how much of that is media/hype based? I'd think the BSD method of development is much more to IBMs liking, not too mention the license! Yet here they are...
Anyway, I wouldn't mind buying a copy of "wine" (or whatever it might be sold as) if I had greater confidence it would work properly and had better documentation. I've played with Wine, and I had some things working, but not everything I needed to make the effort worthwhile. I WAS frustrated with the lack of doc, which contrary to what some people say, I usually find plenty of with the Open Software I typically use (Apache, Tomcat, etc).
I'm NOT ragging on the folks who write Wine, they've done a great job, but I DO think that Wine would benefit from a BSD or LGPL style license.
If anyone cares...
Computer Science is Applied Philosophy
The LGPL was originally called the "Library" GPL, and then later on was backronymed to the "Lesser" GPL by RMS.
:)
Its purpose is to allow closed-source applications to use open-source libraries without becoming "infected" by copyleft source publication requirements.
So if you write a C program that links against the LGPL-licenced glibc, you are not forced to adopt copyleft for your program.
If, however, you modify the actual library code, you are required to publish source to your changes.
If WINE were to be LGPL-ed, you could write a program that would run on both Windows and [any x86 OS with a WINE port] by linking against WINE. Your program could be licenced however you wish, as the act of linking against an LGPL-ed resource does not incurr the responsibility of copyleft.
However, if you discovered that you really needed the as-yet WINE-unimplemented Windows API call foo(), and then did the work to implement the foo() call in WINE, the LGPL would force you to release the source to those changes to the public.
This is, IMHO, a REALLY REALLY good idea. The nature of the WINE project is that once a certain core of the API is ported, the rest of the work is really very modular, but very broad. Certain companies have been completing work on various APIs needed to get their pet projects working (like core gaming APIs) and then refusing to turn these changes back in to the core WINE project for "competitive" reasons - ie, if they have the only working version of these core APIs, then only they can publish software that uses these APIs (until someone re-does the port work and releases the API in a Free manner)
Result: uncecessary duplication of effort, and bad feelings all 'round.
I don't contribute to WINE, so I don't get a vote (which is as it should be) but I'm sure as hell cheering for the LGPL people.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Someone who takes and closes source from a BSD-style license is saying is that they don't believe future changes made by the community are worth opening their source for. If that opinion is justified, then the project is screwed. The project is in trouble because the community is not producing -- a problem unlikely to be fixed by changing to an LGPL style license.
What's a sig?
Perhaps you should have set up an auto-reply telling about your $100/hour consulting fee... the commercial company, at least, might even have paid.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Do people write code in order to write good code and improve the state of computing, or do they do it in order to coerce other programmers into helping along?
The GPL guarantees both, while BSD only guarantees one.
Not necessarily. Many companies are afraid to use GPL-products, they want to have the option to ship a version that is linked to their own software or add a feature that is licensed from a third party or whatever. These are perfectly valid uses that are disallowed by the GPL (the second use may clash with LGPL).
These things can be done with BSD, so companies can actually use it. Any changes they make that are useful to others will usually be put in the main tree so:
1. There are fewer diffs between the open version and their product->easier merges
2. Their code is tested and audited and expanded and debugged. This is a big reason for using open source.
3. Why not?
4. It will be good PR.
5. It may actually make them feel better (especially the programmers).
BSD-licensed code will thus probably get you more good code. If someone does create a closed version with features you like, open source programmers can just copy the features. They haven't taken away anything from you, but may have filled a need that open source developers did not fill. What's wrong with more options?
I don't really understand why people get so upset when there might be a chance that someone uses the code he gives away for free for things he doesn't like. This is the same paranoia that the RIAA/MPAA exhibit: "if we don't put some überprotection on our stuff we will get screwed". They don't care if many legitimate and important uses are no longer possible, like making back-ups or listening to music on my computer. Strangely enough the Slashdot crowd is enraged over this, we tell them to be more trusting and to find ways to make money without creating a policestate. On the other hand it is okay with many of us if programmers make legitimate and important uses impossible with the license they choose for their IP.
The Drowned and the Saved - Primo Levi
/.
Nice trolling, Matt. And I mean that honestly; I think there is a difference between provoking conversation and, well, you know, the typical slashdot troll.
Anyway, I don't know about the rest of the world, but I am not real concerned about the relative "freedom" of licenses. I simply do not want people to steal my work without compensation. For me, sufficient compensation is that the person who benefits from my work releases their enhancements or modifications back to me. Is this so much to ask? That's what the GPL is about for a great many of the people who use it... simply an attempt at fair value exchange.
If somebody else objects to this, they are *free* to NOT USE MY WORK.
As far as "freedom" is concerned - well, if anyone can figure out how to get any I'd like to have some too.
--Charlie
Time for some more of that Conspiracy Theory stuff:
The recent rumours that AOL was looking to buy redhat... There is usually something behind the smoke...
What if AOL was looking for a distro to use for their settop boxes (or easily installed on a standard PC). A disto that can have Wine installed on it.
A distro that AOL can use with wine, and minimal changes to their AOL client would allow them a VERY quick deployment of a Linux based installation of an AOL client.
A distro that can be bundled with Wine+the client in a single install.
Or... A client+wine package that can be installed on any distro that the standard users would be familiar with.....
--
You may be paranoid, but that does not mean that they are not after you.... --Someone on IRC somwhere..
--
Time is on my side
Remember, Transgaming also has a subscription server where subscribers can 'vote' on the options that need work.
For example, I want my FoxPro 5 apps to work. The only current problem is Window regression. My current issues were only caused after major code changes in June 01. IIRC, one of the top 'voted' options has 400-some votes. Again, IIRC, If each vote is $2, I could spend $1000 one votes for Transgaming to work on my issue caused by the regressions.
I can easily see even a small company like mine paying for something like that.
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
This is blatently false. In much the same way you can write a paper with a GPL'd word processor, you can use water from the well without restriction. The GPL only kicks in when you A) modify the well, and B) distribute your modifications.
Furthermore, the well analogy doesn't even work. The well is physical property. The GPL applies to intellectual property. But I will humor the analogy. If someone were to hook a pump up to the well, and sell the water, the GPL still wouldn't apply. The GPL would only apply if the pump owner distributed the pump. This is a recognized limitation of the GPL.
If someone modifies a GPL'd web server, they may serve all the pages they want without releasing their changes. They only have to release changes if they distribute the server. Even then, they only have to release changes to the people that they distribute the server to. I believe there are plans to address this issue in the next version of the GPL.
Back to the well analogy, let's consider a situation where the GPL would kick in. Suppose you discover several places where the well is actually a spring. You decide you would like to make money selling aquaducts and maps to the springs. The GPL simply states that anyone who buys your aquaduct and map, may copy the map and sell their own aquaducts (and you have to tell them how you did it). The LGPL says, the people who buy your aquaducts and maps may copy the maps (and you have to tell them how you derived the maps), but you can still prohibit them from selling aquaducts. Furthermore, if you built the aquaduct for on a different well, the GPL won't even apply to your aquaduct.
Finally, if you don't like the terms of the GPL'd or LGPL'd well, you are free to find your own aquafer and start a new well under any terms you choose.